Chapter 48 - 518-533

518 Bring Me More And I'll Pay Double!

"Good!" I could see her eyes reddened and even traces of tears were there. Even Hilary, the mighty chick of mine, was shaken to such an extent from this scene.

Angelica wasn't any better. I just nodded to her to relieve her worries and try to soothe her pain.

"Go," I said, "go and welcome them. First give them food and drink, let them change and have gears and weapons… Take them around, show them how humans shall live their lives here."

"Ok," the two said in unison while nodding, "but…" Hilary paused, and I got what she wanted to say.

"Just take a tour around, these mercenaries must be loaded with tons of gears," I read through her thoughts. She was worrying about the lack of gears, enough to secure all this number.

But who said we didn't have a way to solve this? In just this battle here, the number of those mercenaries was in millions.

With such numbers, who would worry about coins or gears? Even items like scrolls and materials would come in heaps hard to count!

"Got it," the two girls had faces beamed with joy before they ran downstairs. Just the thought of helping those poor humans made them so happy.

[Lady… I will pay you double the agreed price if you manage to bring fifty million of my humans each day] and as they went downstairs to do their part, I had to do mine..

Who said money couldn't buy anything? Damn! Without money, one would be a powerless beggar!

[Damn! Are you sure? The price of humans? Or just my reward?]

[Both!]

[But… One day…]

[One human missing and I won't pay double] I knew gathering fifty million seemed like an easy task for her big impact, but on a daily basis? That was challenging indeed even for them.

[Cool! Don't renege on your promise!]

[Send a contract to reassure your boss] I knew she wouldn't doubt my sincerity, but her higher ups would.

[Great!]

As she sent a contract, I signed it. Then I started to sign more contracts with these people.

In fact seeing their faces was just enough as a contract for me. Such humans getting a chance to live properly was enough to gain their eternal gratitude and loyalty.

But I still had to secure myself from the dirty minds present in any race, not just humans.

As I did that, the two girls led everyone on their team to welcome the huge number of humans coming here. The number was too much to handle at one time, so the two arranged them into thousands of teams, each led by a single person of selected people.

I watched them go away while Hilary made them bypass over the heaps of dead mercenaries to claim their loot. It was a nice touch from her, letting them have the taste of owning something for the first time.

Such people… I was sure they never owned anything before, not even their pride, not even their dignity, not even their bodies.

But from now on, I swear they'd live a life suited to any high and mighty race. My humans won't be treated like this anymore.

As for the price I promised the green nymph lady… Just looking at those millions of mercenaries with higher stats and much stronger cultivation bases made me feel secure.

Recalling cultivation… I had to wait for the recipe of such a thing from the impact. They agreed, but they didn't honour this deal yet.

Once done, I'd make Lily and her boys turn all of my humans here into powerful cultivators. I'd do anything in my power to help my humans rule supreme in this apocalypse, in the twenty group of apocalypses, in the entire universe in the end.

[Don't forget about our secret recipe deal] I sent before stepping forward inside the blockade zone.

[I didn't forget, but such a thing will take little time to be done. Just be patient, alright?]

[Ok. I'm going to a sealed place with a blockade on any connection. So don't feel panicked if I didn't answer]

[Hmm… Interesting… Do you want me to look for something to help?]

[Can you?]

[Baby, in this wide universe, there is nothing impossible!]

[Cool! Search for something, better to be used repeatedly…] I paused before adding, [Also it's best to find also a defensive tool, to defend big zones against such a thing]

[Got it! Leave it to me]

[Cool! If you couldn't reach me, just store what you got and wait for me to come back on the grid]

[Ok]

As I closed the chat with her, I moved my chariot around the capital. The number of enemies killed here was just astronomical.

I just had to jump and would take tons of bones every time I reached a zone. Even if most were green and blue, their number was enough to secure many deals for months, even years!

"I'm done!"

Just as I was busy doing this, Isac came up with such a confident look on her face. I sighed. Just seeing such a mighty figure in such a mighty race and comparing it to the humans coming out from the portals before made me feel how unjust this universe was.

The system was just? The system was biassed and unfair! If it was just, then it wouldn't let any race have advantage over another.

If those damn higher ups cared truly about the universe, they'd have cared more about weak races. I knew they were looking for strong fighters to win the war, but that didn't mean we should lose our nature and treat the weak in such a merciless and brutal way!

And I thought humans were uncivilised! At least we got our humane way to treat others, unlike other races who were looking more like barbaric people.

"Just wait… I'll come up once I finish," I shouted while taking more bones and loot from all the killed mercenaries here.

As for the monsters these folks brought here, they should be dissected and their meat would be salvaged. Right now we have tens of millions of mouths to feed. And just depending on the monster meat wouldn't be enough.

"I needed to solve the problem of food," I seriously thought while jumping back to my chariot and leading it towards a new zone.

As for Isac, she stood in silence while watching me do all this. It seemed the scene of the humans coming here didn't escape her senses. And somehow she felt embarrassed about what happened to my people.

I just hoped all the other races across the limitless universe would feel the same. One day, one way or another, I'd force them to feel the same without doubt.

519 [Bonus chapter] A Pleasant Surprise

As for the food problem, I already thought of a solution a long time ago, since the early hours of the apocalypse.

But I had no chance before to execute this plan. Right now I was holding a lot of land, enough to be used as a base to plant crops.

"Show me," as I finished after five hours, I reached the chariot and stood in front of the all silent Isac.

"I know about the privilege of getting loot from the dead, but I never saw someone taking things from the bodies of the dead before."

She stood there watching me grabbing bones, and seemed to grow curious about this.

"Didn't you notice before that you are seeing too much of my power?" I rolled my eyes before adding, "now let's get straight to business. Show me what you did."

"Follow me then," she led the way down the stairs where we entered a room there. I left the door open so she wouldn't get any funny thoughts.

At this moment, even if she removed her male mask off her face, I wouldn't get to think about her at all..

It wasn't Hilary who stood between me and other girls at the moment, but Karoline.

This girl… I thought I was able to uncover what happened to her during my time here. But she just left fast, leaving me behind burdened with guilt.

What just happened to this girl? Sigh! Since that bastard appeared, many mysteries began roaming around me.

"Here," Isac took out many papers from her inventory. They were milky white semi-transparent looking papers that had a very smooth surface.

"These…" I looked at the small lines drawn over the bunch of papers, "can you explain them?"

"This is the layout of the capital…" she started flipping through the papers before grabbing two out.

Each sheet of paper was almost three metres in length and two in width. And they were filled with tiny little lines that gave me a headache to just check them.

"You have a magnifying skill, right?" she asked and I nodded, "use it. I drew these in such small and tiny drawings so it could fit the papers I had."

"Hawk Eye," I instantly used the skill without speaking about my doubts towards what she said. Yet when I checked the drawing with my skill, a new world opened in front of me.

She really drew these blueprints to be seen with a Hawk Eye skill. I looked at wide streets, drawings of big buildings, even decorations like fountains and defences like walls and towers.

Each building was demonstrated in layers, in such a magical way for me to see each layer if I focused on it.

Just seeing this drawing for almost an hour, I got a melancholic feeling of visiting the big bustling capital back in my days. It was a very big city, filled with such things like statues and fountains.

It also had an organised layout, not close to such a masterpiece here.

"You…" I closed my eyes and relieved myself, "you drew it yourself?"

"Who else did it then?" she rolled her eyes, "what do you think now? Will I be able to execute this task?"

"Sure… You are… Just perfect!"

"Hahaha! Admit it now! My lessons in designing clothes worked out best for you, hahaha!"

Just mentioning this ruined what I initially felt towards her. I gave her a long gaze before sighing. This girl… She was way beyond saving.

"What about the rest?" I pointed at other papers. After all, I only checked two papers, and there were around ten more.

"I took liberty in drawing other stuff," she said in such a happy tone like a little kid proud of doing her homework, "see this?" she grabbed another paper and extended it over the bed, "this is the part outside the capital. You know the size of the capital isn't bad as a city, but for a kingdom capital you need more space, right?"

"That's correct."

"That's why I took advantage of the entire terrain around, used it to expand the capital. See, this is the part east of the capital, extending for ten miles around."

I used my Hawk Eye skill again and examined the drawing. Like she said, she expanded the capital and linked the east part of it with this part.

I started to examine this, then compared it with the initial drawings of the capital. To be honest, she did a marvellous task here.

The streets were aligned together like there was no barrier. Her arrangement of the living blocks was great, forming five angled star shaped blocks at this part of the capital.

"These are also parts related to areas around us. As for the defences…" She started shuffling the papers like they were nothing important, "this one here is related to the defences of the capital."

As I examined it, I saw a general view of the capital. "You arranged the entire capital in the form of a hexagonal star?" I raised my head and asked. And she nodded.

"Your kingdom is called the kingdom of heaven. I recall that you, humans, tend to refer to heavens as stars. Is it weird to use such a design for the capital?"

She… Even thought about this! Impressive… Truly impressive!

"That's cool," I returned to check the design. It showed what she stated before, the general places of defences starting from those triple giant walls around the capital.

It also included many towers, armour places, army camps, and even training grounds. "Tell me, what do your race see in heaven?" I asked while checking the details of her drawings.

"Our heaven is our shrines," she said with such a logical answer, "we see heaven in the signs of the shrines scattered in the universe and belonging to our race."

"Nice concept," I said.

"The nicer one actually is the one belonging to the Toranks," she sighed, "they see heaven in the form of the beautiful cosmos, constellations and star dust."

"Toranks? Are they a strong race?"

520 A Serious Talk With The Missing One!

"One of the mightiest three in the universe," she blurted out, "alongside us and Heskos, they are the third."

"I see…" I returned to continue studying the drawing, thinking about how her race was the third when there were other mightier ones, like Hectors?

How her race higher ups messed up in raising her the way she wanted, even giving her such delusional info?!

Selvators were the third mighty race in the universe? I couldn't believe this sh*t!

I couldn't help but steal a side glance at her. Was she really beautiful to such an extent? To the degree that one higher up was raising her for his boy? Or perhaps… For himself?!!

"It's great," I finished studying the drawing and couldn't help but express my admiration, "you thought about everything, arranged them in such unity with other blocks."

"That's my work," she shrugged as this was nothing, "so, will I start mapping and planning the entire kingdom?"

"Go for it," I raised a thumb up, "you have a green light from me."

"What?"

"It means you can start doing it now," I felt this term might be human related and specific, "do you need me to arrange a team for you to visit other places?".

After all, she needed to go out there and start drawing the maps.

"No need, I got some sort of an item that can help me do it," she took out a strange ball that was white in shape, glistering from time to time, with thick white fog circulating inside.

"This…" I held it and felt how cold it was.

"Careful… This is a really good baby that can help me see for tens, even hundreds of miles around."

"Is that true?!" I raised an eyebrow, and she snatched the ball when she saw my reaction.

"Like you said to me before, this isn't for share or sale!"

"Don't act like that," I rolled my eyes, knowing what she was referring to.

"Mean human! I asked for a lot of nice stuff from you and yet you denied it all!"

She even stuck out her tongue, making me sigh.

"Girl, don't you know I can force you to do anything by our contract?" I took a step forward, leant over her as I added in slow tone, "Anything… I… Want?"

"You…" She stepped back to be tripped by the bed and fell over her papers with a slightly reddened face.

"You… You know I'm a man!" she shouted in such embarrassment, and her answer made me laugh.

"Yes, a girl in the suit of a boy," I touched her male face, "strip off the suit, and a sexy girl is there inside, right?"

"S… Stay away…" she even retreated back to the end of the bed, bending her knees and taking a small space.

"Hahaha! This is my chariot, and everything inside is mine," I was enjoying her reaction. This girl tried more than once before at me, and now she acted like this when I teased her a little?

That was funny!

"W… What do you… Mean?!" she stuttered out of her fear.

"Nothing," I shrugged, taking a step back before turning to leave, "just remember, you aren't ready to get to me, not with the current you."

I left her behind, while not knowing if she got the lesson here or not.

As I reached up at my chariot, I started to think about her orb. "Something that can let her see for such a large distance… The universe is boundless and filled with such interesting things indeed."

I turned around and looked at the bustling capital. All of my team was trying their best and working for the tasks assigned to them.

Right now the capital was filled with tens of millions of people walking around and getting to know their new lives.

I just hoped the two girls and their team would know what to do best with them.

"I have no more tasks to do here," I turned towards the horizon, "it's time to see what went wrong with this girl!"

I knew Karoline had something fishy going on around her. Getting slammed by the deadly red beam was strange enough, and now she ran away.

The change in her personality was itching me down. Such a change in her wasn't logical and didn't make any sense at all.

She… Was a different person after that hit. Red beams were used to kill, since when were they used to change one's mind?

I had to get more answers. But first I had to get to her.

I moved my chariot outside the seal region around my capital. Once there, I opened my profile first, checked something before opening my friend list and found her name there.

[Where are you now?] I sent, and as expected, no answer came. [If you didn't answer, I'll force you to do so using the contract between the two of us]

One of the reasons that made me so lenient and patient in dealing with her issue was the contract. Even if she tried to do something funny, she wouldn't be able to truly harm me.

After all, I was well protected by the contract between the two of us.

[Screw off!]

As expected, mentioning the contract was enough to force her to respond.

[Where are you?]

[Why? Do you want to come and see me?]

Of course I could take this tone as her way to express her anger. But I had the feeling it was more sarcasm than wrath.

[Are you afraid?]

[It's not like that, it's just you can't possibly find me]

Couldn't find you… A thing flashed in my mind next, a thing that happened not long ago.

[Another world?]

[Bingo!]

[Who the hell are you?]

It was just like I expected, she went to another world. This wasn't the first case to happen here.

Just when the illusion hit my forces, part was kidnapped and taken forcibly to another world.

This wasn't a new thing to hear, but was she in the same world as them?

[Someone who wants to see you dead!]

521 Putting A Plan For Rescue

Ok… At least I knew she wasn't the one speaking to me, but another person. An enemy of mine… Interesting!

[I have a very long list of names wanting me dead, which one of them are you then?]

[One you'll never imagine!]

[Is that so?] I clenched my fists before adding, [But I'm pretty damn sure you are someone that I can kill]

[If you found me!]

[It's easy, motherf*cker! I'll just go through my list, kill each and single one of them until I find you]

[You'll take much time to do that]

[Don't worry about my time, I get to do whatever I want with it!]

His answer revealed another thing to me, he was in this world of mine. And he was someone I could reach and kill..

But he wasn't nearby to feel such fear. So where was he? And how did he do it?

[Let's make a bet then… What would you do if your little beloved girl came at night and stabbed you with a dagger?]

[I will simply smash the dagger to pieces]

[What if I forced her to destroy everything close and dear to you?]

[She can't, after all she is bound by a contract with me]

[Then I'll smash that contract first!]

[No need] I shrugged, [I'll come to see you first]

[We'll see]

Breaking a contract wasn't that hard, but for a reason I felt it was something hard for him.

So… my girl wasn't in this world. She was taken to another world, away from here. It must be the same way the mysterious race that came attacking my forces before used to get my humans away.

He was someone I faced before, someone I and he had a very deep enmity for. And he wasn't that mysterious bastard that was lurking at the shadows, waiting for me to slip and attack.

And he was weak. A weak person who I met before and held a deep grudge against me, with an ability to access an alien world…

That made me think of a name… That dude… He was definitely a paragon!

A paragon was such a mighty person who would get everyone to work for him. He got access to move forces through worlds, after all he was one of the few mighty figures in his world.

He was also someone who wasn't strong enough to face me right now. Facing me meant death, and that was proven right in all the clashes I had with paragons till now.

He was biding his time, waiting for what Isac said the paragon time to shine, the fourth and fifth quest.

Would he be strong enough to face me? I doubted that. I believed any paragon would think thrice before coming at me at this current stage.

Even if the seal was lifted off their power, they still needed to train and raise it significantly to be able to crush me.

That meant… That bastard would keep Karoline in his clutches for all this time.

To relieve his control over her, I had to find her and see what that jerk used to do.

I wasn't out of options, as I got a clue. Whatever he used, he had to use the red beam energy to execute it.

That meant the tool he used needed lots of energy to be activated. And it meant he also had the support from the angels.

Another way was by finding that bastard and killing him. Once killed, his control would be released and my girl would be freed.

The choice was simple… I had my girl far away in an unknown world right now, while I had that bastard here.

So I had to look for paragons and ask them about who did it… or kill them all and get rid of such a nuisance.

As for my girl… I just hoped she was still having part of her consciousness. After all, the part of killing that jerk was risky as she would be left all alone in such an alien world.

If she was asleep all this time, then once I kill that bastard, she would wake up to find herself in such a strange world among a strange race.

That would be the last thing I'd like to see.

The best case scenario would be for her to be brought over here before I got to kill that son of b*tch. No matter how I deeply wanted this to happen, I knew it was far unlikely to occur.

That bastard would never bring her here without being forced to. And even if I got my hands on him, he might see this as a good revenge against me.

Sigh! This situation was just… Messy. I had to first determine who he was before deciding what to do.

As for the opportunity to kill him, I knew there was a chance soon to come; the golden quests!

These quests were very important to any strong figure. It wouldn't make sense for any paragon to skip it. And if one did, he would be marked down easily.

So one way or another, I was going to know his identity very soon.

But that didn't mean I couldn't start my work from now.

[Can you prepare a detailed list of all the paragons in our world?]

[All? Detailed? You know this isn't easy stuff thrown around the corner of the street!]

[Just do it for me, it's very important] I rolled my eyes. That Fang dude had a sharp tongue as my jumper.

[Ok, but I can't promise anything about the Hector race. After all, they barked in our yard without invitation… Oh wait, someone just provoked the dogs to let them chase us here!]

[Stop blaming me on something I have no fault in] I couldn't believe he was still thinking about this till now, [Just prepare the list of other races paragons for me]

[Even of our race? You know there is only one left and we are on good terms with you now]

522 The Food Big Problem

[Just prepare all] I paused for a second when he said that. Indeed the Selvators were now bound tightly with my ship, but it didn't mean they wouldn't try anything funny.

[Give me a couple of days then]

[Don't drop it off your mind, ok?]

[I said I'll look for it]

I closed the chat knowing that this dude was trustworthy. If he said he would do it, then he would.

Well… That was all I could for her for now. I knew with my contract, she wouldn't be used to harm me.

And that dude seemed to plan something in the future for me to suffer in her hands. Even if he tried to break the contract, I doubted he would do it anytime soon.

If he had the ability, he would rather have done it by now. But who was the paragon that would be so weak and poor to not be able to do it?.

Was he an illusionist? Was he part of that cowardly race? Of course I killed a few of their archlords, destroyed their progress here and left them in the rightful position of such a cowardly race; at the rock bottom.

But I didn't recall killing any of their paragons yet. Or did I kill by accident at my last battle? It was so damn chaotic and I didn't find any paragon corpses back there after the dust settled.

If I found any missing paragons in the list from that race, that meant I killed it by accident in that fight back then. Or perhaps he got killed at the hands of other paragons?

Of course I wasn't the only one who roamed around and killed paragons in the apocalypse, right?

Anyway, I decided to keep checking the status of her condition in my contract list. If that bastard tried to break the contract, I'd get to know it at once.

As enough time passed, I moved my chariot back to the capital. The humans there had time to check the capital and see things there.

It was time for them to get arranged and classified. Hopefully not all of them would be workers or labour dudes.

I hoped good seeds would be found there, especially to help my small group of MIT youths.

"How are things here?" As I reached the central part of the capital, I stood above the large group of people led by Hilary.

The look of people right now was quite different. Instead of all the bare chested humans, I got to see all humans cladded in armour from head to toe.

Even many got their weapons raised, as if they were waiting or preparing for a fight.

"They got to know the current situation here," she came on board while saying this, "but… They really lived a harsh life! The stories I heard… The poor lives they lived… The misery they saw… I don't know if we can wash these away easily."

"Sigh, we will do our best," I sighed while giving her a warm hug, "it's not time for them to get classified and arranged into smaller teams."

"I know," she moved away before asking, "any news about her?"

I knew she meant Karoline. And when I heard the question coming from her, I couldn't help but bitterly smile.

"She… Is far away from here right now."

"On another continent?"

"Another world," I paused, "someone kidnapped her and moved her away."

"That… What are you going to do?"

I knew her care and concern wasn't just for Karoline, but for herself. After all, Karoline was my first girl, the one that held a special place in my heart.

Even when I had Hilary, I couldn't forget about her. I didn't know if that was a good or bad thing, but I decided to let such a dilemma for later.

"The same thing I always did, fight!" I said in a firm tone before adding, "but not now. Now is the hour to get my kingdom stand on her legs and be tall and mighty over others."

"O… Ok…" she seemed to be thinking about something, and I didn't want to know.

"Go and lead the teams to organise these humans," I returned to my topic, "let them be arranged according to their skills. We are looking for everything, builders, workers, miners, carpenters, scientists, and even farmers."

"Farmers? Can we plant anything in this cursed world?!!" She looked astonished when she heard that. And she didn't stop just there.

"You know this issue posed a challenging problem to me all this time? I tried, tried everything, but nothing worked! Our world is cursed! One week without a light or warmth, and one more with blazing suns scorching our lands and making nothing grow!"

I knew what she was talking about. In fact the dilemma of planting crops wasn't solved until the passage of more than eighty years after the apocalypse.

I read many records back then about how hard and impossible growing anything was. But eventually humans managed to borrow such technology from other races.

However with such knowledge, humans took a decade more to be able to grow crops regularly and solve this problem.

During all this time, we used to buy crops from other races using coins and treasures. It was a very hard time as I got it from the records.

I didn't live through this period except when I was a kid. I didn't recall that much about this period.

But I knew how hard it was on humans to secure their food, depending entirely on monster meat for a long time before starting to trade with other races.

So since the first hours of my presence here, I took steps to solve this problem. I got that Hilary wasn't aware of this as she didn't live long enough before to know such info.

"I got a solution," I said with confidence, "but let us first see what we got here before rushing to do it."

523 Where Is Everyone?

"You do… Is that real?" Such an intense reaction from her told me how hard it really was. Sigh! Humans… We were faced with many adversaries in this apocalypse.

Even securing our food was such a dilemma, even for someone like Hilary.

"It's true," I nodded, "but to do it, I'll need to prepare many things first. But I have the essence used to do it."

"Tell me… Tell me how you did it!" she even grabbed my arm to know the answer.

"Not now," I shrugged, letting my arm free from hers, "let's first scan those people then I'll bring you with me when I'm doing it."

"Pretty mysterious, huh?"

"Not like that… It's just we need to select a fertile place, good enough with secured water supply and strong defences. If we don't, then we might lose it like what happened here at MIT campus."

Bringing back MIT made her eyes dim. I got that she was still blaming herself for such loss. And I could only sigh and give her a deep hug again.

"Stop blaming yourself, we make mistakes to learn from and grow up, right?".

"Uhm," she said in such a muffled way before I let her go down to do what she had to do.

"Time to go and check over others," I got done from here and then moved towards the next target; the MIT campus.

I knew we lost a lot there, but I was hoping these kids would have something up their sleeve to solve such problems.

"How are things here?"

Just as I arrived, I saw a bunch of youths working on a few devices. From the look of it, they were trying to repair a few using parts from others.

Good! They were trying at least.

"L… Lord…" few paused and many lowered their heads in respect. I could feel their fear and veneration towards me. Sigh, was I such a scary person or what?

"Tell me, did you manage to repair any?" I didn't descend off my chariot and just spoke while standing high up there.

"Lord… We are trying to repair many devices, but…" one spoke and seemed to struggle to continue.

"Keep talking," I demanded in a simple tone that I hoped to not scare that kid with.

"We don't have the energy to test them yet… So we don't know if we succeeded or not."

"I see," I got the general idea behind his hesitation. He was a scientist sprout. Even if he was still not considered a true scientist in the past world, he was still thinking like one.

Scientists never liked to give definite answers or make promises without testing and retesting. I got where he came from, and could only inwardly sigh.

What I looked for was just such a simple answer, not that much actually. As long as they were trying their best to solve this disaster, it was great.

Even if not all the devices fixed here worked later on, I got the feeling they wouldn't stop at anything to make them work.

"Do you know what's the progress in researching the power supply?"

"Lord… We already solved it before… Before we got attacked!"

"Solved it?! For real?!!" I was surprised to hear such great news. Why didn't anyone tell me about this before?

"But it's gone… All the work we did is gone!"

I could feel the bitterness in his tone. There was nothing grave for any scientist like losing his work and achievements like this.

"Don't feel this way," I had to say a few encouraging words for them, "you did it once, and that means you broke the puzzle and got a formula, right? You did it once, and that means you can do it again."

"Y… Yes…" he hesitated and even exchanged looks with others around him.

"When are you going to reproduce this energy again?" I was so curious to see what they got in the end.

"We… Are all busy repairing the devices. So…"

I got his meaning. "No problem, just spread my orders. Let a team of your elites be formed and rework on producing the energy again. We have to work shoulder by shoulder with the repair process. After all, it's like what you just said, we can't tell if they will work or not without a suitable source of power, right?"

"Indeed," he nodded while I could see his body shaking.

"Great, keep up the good work and keep me posted about any improvements."

I had to leave or else that kid and others around might faint out of the blue. I could only sigh. I was too much domineering for many humans, despite the fact that I wasn't a threat to any of them.

But they got to crack the energy problem so damn fast! Damn! I didn't even think they'd do it in such short notice!

So, that bastard must have known about what they did and tried to intervene to ruin everything. What was he afraid of? My energy was the first step in a long series of stairs leading to what I wanted.

Even by ruining things here, we could easily rebuild everything from scratch. We were humans, once we broke through some sort of a barrier, we wouldn't stop.

Or was he planning on killing all the youths from MIT? I frankly couldn't read through his mind…

My next stop was at Lily's place. She selected the side just on the other bank of the river.

Just from my place I could see lots of people working to remodel the place. During this time, they dug trenches, holes, and even built artificial hills.

I could also see lots of rows of densely packed tents that must be placed for the soldiers to rest.

From the general look of it, Lily transformed the southern side of the river into such a big military drilling camp. But so far she didn't start training any, and I doubted from the size of the work here she would anytime soon.

Yet I went directly there and started to slowly fly around, checking things without speaking or asking anything.

I didn't want to disturb them from their work. As for the one who was going to give me an explanation and answers, she was nowhere to be seen here.

I even failed to spot any familiar faces of my team.

Where did they all go then?

524 A Fierce Training In The Ocean

This place was still located inside the seal zone, so I couldn't directly send messages to them.

"Hey, you… Yes you… Come here…" I selected one of Lily's men and shouted for him to come.

Seeing me on my chariot made this dude startled. He stood there for a second before hurrying to run to me.

"Yes lord, how can I be of help?" he asked, and I could feel his fear. He was covered up with red fine scales. His scales gave me the impression of being a male, as they were slightly bigger and had a harder surface than those of Lily's.

"Where is Lily?" I wanted to ask about my people, but I doubted he would know them.

"The lady… She went with the selected ones to start the training at once."

"Selected ones?!" I raised one eyebrow when I heard what he said..

"She selected them out of the entire group here, then they went this direction to start training."

He pointed in the direction of the ocean to the East. I turned towards that direction and wondered what was there for them to train.

"Go back," I let my baby rise up and went towards the direction of the ocean. I didn't care about that part before, as it was filled with many ships that were all useless.

I knew that most of them were destroyed. But even if there were still intact ships there, the sea monsters wouldn't let them sail safely.

Besides… The sea life as humans knew before didn't exist. So there was no point in letting such big metal things work again.

When I reached the shore, I could easily spot them. A group of almost a thousand people, standing over a floating big metallic ship that seemed to be used to move cargo and other things.

It was standing in the middle of water, half a mile away from the land. And all around, many monsters appeared to attack the ship.

So… This was the training session for my elites? Interesting…

I moved slowly while watching with interest. She let them fight monsters coming at the ship, without any single moment of rest.

Being in the middle of such a big ocean meant big aquatic monsters were here. I managed to get a glimpse on how big ocean monsters were when that crazy monster from before used its technique on the ocean bed.

I saw monsters spanning for hundreds of metres, looking so damn giants and mighty. But they were nothing in front of the big technique of that bastard.

Yet right now the boys of mine were fighting much smaller monsters. Yet these monsters weren't that easy to handle.

They could rise up and even float on the surface of water, fly for almost twenty metres in the air as if they jumped from water.

They could use their scales, fins, even sharp needle like protrusions to attack. They could bite with sharp teeth, hit fiercely with their strong bodies, and even use a few skills every now and then.

All the skills they used were water related. Creating small tornados of water, or even forcing a big wave to come at the ship… Everything was possible here.

But on the other hand my boys were standing firm, listening to the words of Lily and her few groups of ten people who seemed to work as instructors.

"Keep in line… Don't miss that son of b*tch… What? Are you a pussy or what?… Don't let it come on board!… Release your attacks fiercely and with all the might you can muster…"

Her voice echoed in the world when I came closer. She was dealing in such a harsh way with them, letting me inwardly sigh.

I… Was so soft back then with them. It was great to have such a capable person with vast experience in fighting to train them.

"Hi," I greeted when I came, but Lily only nodded for me once before returning to rain everyone with her orders.

"You are pathetic! You call yourselves the cream of the croup? You dare to consider yourselves elites? Humph! A little boy back in my yard can do much better than all of you!"

Yes, she was fierce. And I liked this way of teaching. She was pushing them beyond their limits. However there was something they all lacked, or actually two.

One was skills. Like me back then, they got only useless ground skills from monsters using the tattoo trick. But now their skills meant nothing in front of such aquatic monsters.

The only ones who were performing great were those mages. With their fiery skills, even if they were low graded skills, they managed to cause considerable damage to these monsters.

The rest of them needed monsters to board on the ship to slay them. This was… Actually impractical!

Trying to fight aquatic monsters using the ground fighting techniques and ways was bullsh*t. I got what Lily was trying to do here, she was trying to show them how weak and inexperienced they were.

She wanted to show them other areas they neglected and they lacked greatly in. Besides, fighting like this was useful in the long run indeed.

"Keep going," I knew she was too busy to even spare a moment for me, "I'll come to check on you later."

"Keep fighting… Don't let that bastard use his skill…" she continued talking while waving an arm at me.

I helplessly left while leaving my boys to suffer there.

As I was there, few glanced at me, asking for me to help. I didn't step in or say anything to help. They needed to suffer, so they would grow stronger.

Even the spearhead's mighty ability was useless against monsters. It can slow them slightly down, but not as much as it did at races in the apocalypse.

I left them to their fate and returned back to my capital. I went directly towards the west side, where Hilary and Angelica led everyone to gather there.

As I arrived, I could see the sprouts of the early groups formed by them. It seemed this would take much longer than I expected. So I decided to get some rest.

525 Getting A Tasty Meal

All this time I kept fighting from one hellish battle to another without a single moment of rest. It seemed my cultivation was growing stronger and with it fatigue wasn't felt easily like before.

I just opened three stages here, yet it was enough to help me endure exhaustion more than before.

However, that was considering physical stress. What about mental one? I was stressed and pressured during all this time, and right now I was feeling really tired.

So I went downstairs, selected a random room and went into it. Things were finally calm here since the hectic last days. So sleeping for a few hours wouldn't do any harm, right?

I just hoped that the bastard wouldn't come to my capital while I was sleeping. He wouldn't be this rash, right?

As I laid my body on the bed, I started to think about one person; Karoline.

Her angelic face appeared in front of my eyes when I rested my body there. She… Was targeted by my enemy because she was my weak spot..

She wasn't that strong to defend herself. Who would defend against the falling red beam but me? Yet I always thought she could jump away from such a beam using her ability.

So what happened? Was she exposed to some sort of a space seal before this attack? Or was she deeply immersed in fighting enemies and didn't see that attack coming?

She couldn't have been so careless! Especially when her ability was the perfect counter to such an attack.

Things looked vague in front of my eyes. Damn! How much I hated facing uncertainties!

Part of the reason why I studied the old records in such a fervent way was my curiosity to know how the world looked before my time.

I also did that as I was afraid, afraid of having unknown things I didn't know in life. I wasn't strong, never was, but I always felt I was destined to something greater.

That intangible itch was driving me to stay long nights reading and studying. Others thought I was crazy, but right now I was thankful I was one.

But right now I felt like I returned back to where I started. The latest events were filled with many uncertainties, making me feel the old itch once again.

I needed to know… And the only way I knew to do that was to study and keep studying.

I needed to look for sources of knowledge. My deadliest enemy now wasn't the races here, not even the Hectors, nor paragons.

It was that damn bastard I didn't know anything about.

[Are you aware of any interesting information impacts?] I asked Lady green nymph, to just remember that damn seal and sign.

I'd send this message again once I woke up. I had to start studying. What I learnt before was just related to my world, not anything like the vast universe.

I needed to know what the big universe looked like, its rules, its big races, its big events… I wanted to learn about everything.

As for Karoline, I had to wait until that golden quest time to face that bastard and kill him.

I closed my eyes while thinking about her. And this time I slept for a long time.

The stress over my mind wasn't as simple as I thought. When I opened my eyes, I was met with the curious face of Hilary.

She was sitting next to me, undressing half of her armour to reveal two full spheres there.

From my spot, I could see the deep and long cleavage that extended between the two hills. Seeing her eyes from this close, sensing the warmth of her breath like this, made something inside me move.

"Rise and shine little star," she said with such a sweet laugh that I couldn't resist.

"Come here," and as I was hungry for sleep, I was also hungry for her. During our next five hours, we kept twisting and rolling, exchanging places all the time, even raising her up and slamming her back to the wall while fiercely devouring her like she was the sweetest burger in life.

As I finished up my delicious and refreshing meal, I left her body weak and soft on the bed and went up stairs.

I learnt from her that more than an entire day has already passed. It was such a long time of rest, and I just added five more hours to this.

She told me they finished assigning people into groups, and Angelica was up there waiting for me. And there I went.

"You…" but as I reached the stairs, I felt like someone was hurrying his steps up to the roof. When I arrived there, I found no one but Angelica, with all reddened face and eyes that avoided mine.

"Were you… Eavesdropping on us?" I came closer and she didn't retreat. Of course the seductive lady of my team wouldn't get cold feet in front of any man.

"You two… Left your door open," she said in defence while looking me in the eyes, "if I got permission from her, can we…"

"Not a chance," I stopped her before saying something useless. I knew she had desired me since day one, but I didn't feel anything towards her.

I was already having enough girls around to keep me busy. And I didn't like jumping around from bed to another, climbing one girl after another.

"Next time… Close the door tightly or else don't blame me," she stuck out her tongue, with an attitude that told me she didn't drop that matter yet from her mind.

"I will take note of this next time," I was half asleep when I started devouring Hilary. So I didn't notice the half opened door until we were already too deep in our thing.

"Tell me, how are things here?" I went to the side of my chariot, and there I found a big group of people standing in groups, spanning much further away than before.

They lived inside tents that Hilary and Angelica seemed to purchase for them from the market. Or perhaps what these people got from the dead mercenaries was enough to let them buy their own things.

526 The Human Groups

"We… Managed to distribute them according to their preferences and talents," she released such a tiring long sigh, telling me how hard she and Hilary worked.

Well, Hilary got her reward, but this poor girl here didn't. I hoped one day a suitable man would arrive and appear in her life, making her forget all this exhaustion with lots of cries.

"And?" I demanded for more explanation that she did later.

"We arranged them into real life talents, fighters, special talents, and normal folks groups," she started by saying this before delving deeper into many details of each group.

"The real life talents are those who used to work normal professions in their lives before the apocalypse hit their worlds. Ah, as we got to know them better, they lived just mirroring copies of what we used to have before the apocalypse."

"Interesting," it seemed the mind thinking of all humans was the same even for those not belonging to Earth. So it ran in our genes, and wasn't an Earth thing. "But they seem to have apocalypses much earlier than us, right?"

"Twenty and thirty years… The longest duration we got was fifty, and they were the second generation," she sighed, "these are the worst of all. They lived their entire lives as slaves, knew nothing, had zero talent or skill… They are the normal folks, the last group.".

"I see… Are they that much?"

"Almost half of the entire people you brought over," she said as if it was a bad thing. There was nothing bad in having normal people who should just live in peace, marry, and bring us more humans.

"And the rest?"

"Mostly in the first and third groups, fighters who worked before in big armies and witnessed many battles and those who used to do things before the apocalypse."

"Interesting… So are we having lots of experienced fighters?"

"With low stats? And zero cultivation base? They aren't like the scary ones you once brought. Damn! Can't you just find more of those you brought before?"

"I wish I could," this girl was only focusing on fighting. Having weak people wasn't bad. We needed mass, strength in numbers, that was my current concept and state of mind.

"So do we have builders? Miners?" I asked, and she nodded.

"We have a lot of these, carpenters, and even farmers. But the last ones were grouped in separate entities per Hilary's orders. Despite that, none of them seemed enthusiastic about returning to their former job, saying there is no point in trying to plant anything in the apocalypse."

"Let them think this way, I promise to give them a scary surprise," I evilly grinned before adding, "what about special talents?"

"We found scientists, librarians, even people who used to experiment new things in the apocalypse… Look, they are a bunch of weird people, thinking this is all just a trial sent by gods to make us repent of our old ways of life. These… Are lunatics who used to test new stuff, scary stuff…"

I didn't get her point clearly, but this was the apocalypse. Apocalypse would ignite sparks in many, and drive others over the edge of insanity.

"Like what?" I asked with lack of interest.

"Like building cities over clouds! Like trying to poison waters, testing new stuff to kill, testing things to make others share what monsters have in physical terms. Damn! I even heard one speaking about implanting monster parts into human bodies. They are lunatics!"

"Oh! All of this group is like this?!!" I asked with surprise. Things like these weren't alien to me. I read about such tests before, done exclusively and in deep secrecy under the sponsorship of the ruling kingdom royalties.

I heard that part of what made the past three kingdoms survive was the accomplishments of such folks. They were crazy, that was what records described them. But even craziness if guided in the right direction might become effective.

"Of course not! Only a small bunch are like this! The rest were scientists before the apocalypse hit."

"Great," I decided, "take me to those lunatics then."

"Are you going to kill them?"

"Stupid girl! We aren't killing other humans!"

I smacked her head, hopefully she would regain her sanity about these people.

Craziness? What was logical about all this apocalypse around us? Monsters popping out of nowhere, attacking and feasting on us. Scary alien races that invaded our Earth without warning.

And the system came above all to be the crown jewel of all this mess! Damn! Since when have we lived a normal life from the first moment of the apocalypse?

Being crazy alone wasn't good. Being different in a group of normal people living their lives according to fixed rules and routine wasn't good.

Just look at this girl… Angelica wasn't the normal type of a human girl that you would meet any day. And yet she didn't see how special these people were.

Crazy folks before the apocalypse were snatched by big nations and were given the chance to let their craziness serve the greediness of others.

Those who invented mass destruction nuclear weapons were hailed as geniuses, looking at with envy and admiration despite all they did was a crazy thing!

It didn't matter if you were crazy, it mattered how you let your craziness serve and where.

For me, I was going to do exactly what those greedy and crazy leaders of big nations before did. I would give those folks fertile land to let their craziness fruit into things that would change the future of my kingdom.

"Go there," she pointed in a certain direction while touching her head, "they are gathered there. A group of a few thousand people or so."

"Cool," I moved my chariot and flew fast over the heads of many. My chariot was eye catchy, hard to not be present and not look up there to see it.

I passed over the humans down below, hopefully the sight of my chariot would bring more security and sense of power to them.

527 Why Farming Is Impossible In Apocalypse?

"Stop, they are here," she said and I stopped to see a small group of people that no one liked to stand with or near.

An empty space of half a mile was separating their tents from others. It seemed many looked at them in the same way Angelica did.

Like they held a contagious disease or something.

"Hey, get out of your tents… The lord of our kingdom is here to see you," Angelica shouted in such disdain and faint anger, while I silently watched from the side.

Thousands of curious heads came in my sight next, extending their heads to be met with the mighty look of my chariot.

"Lord!" They all stood outside and said in such a weird way, as if they didn't expect me to come to meet them, the exiled ones.

"I heard you are people who used to test new things in the apocalypse, is that correct?"

"Yes lord," one of them answered, an old looking man with all white and long hair that fell over his shoulders down to the half of his back..

"What's your name?"

"Alky, my lord."

"Ok, you are one of the oldest here," I moved my eyes around before adding, "so let you be the current leader of this team."

"What for?" Alky seemed to feel my intentions, but he didn't dare to directly state what he felt to not offend me or something.

Even they were so courageous to try new stuff, they lived a life of slaves. Standing in front of me would make any of them hesitate before saying anything to me.

"A special team for one purpose…" I raised my index finger before adding in slow tone, "a team to make us have new things that belong only to humans."

Once I said it, I could notice the glimmer that was reflected in their eyes. They seemed to crave for the same thing as me, getting us new ways to survive in this apocalypse, things unique only to humans.

"You will work after we rebuild the capital," I declared, "your name will be Team Armageddon, that ancient war between gods that our ancient history here spoke about."

They showed faint smiles on their faces. I didn't say much, but they got what I wanted to convey to them.

All their madness would be supported by me, working under my umbrella as my secret long term project.

The kids back at MIT campus and those from military defensive companies weren't bad. Their rule was to solve big issues fast and give humans new ways to fight the apocalypse in a short time.

But in the long run, this wouldn't be feasible. I had to support this team like the big and mighty kings and queens of my time once did.

If doing this wasn't good, then not a single one of them would have ever supported that team in such secrecy.

Even in the all detailed records, there wasn't a single mention of what such a team did. I was curious about the results this bunch of crazy folks here would bring.

"Go down there," I said to Angelica, "wake Hilary up. Tell her that the time is right to start farming."

"Farming?!!" Angelica was already surprised with my arrangement here. But when I said my last piece, she seemed more startled, "but the farmers we had said…"

"Forget about them," I raised my head high in the sky, "the suns are about to shine here. So it's the perfect moment to start planting our food."

"Ok…" she went downstairs while not feeling such confidence like I had.

I watched her back while sighing. Even special and talented people of my team in this apocalypse had such limited visions.

Or perhaps I had a different life experience than them, knowing much more than what they knew?

As I waited for her to return, I relieved my heavy presence over the folks here and lifted my chariot high in the sky.

I overlooked a great stretch of land all around. I was situated on the west side of the capital.

According to the drawings of Lily's blueprints, I knew this part would extend for ten more miles before ending with the triple big walls.

So we can use the area around the wall to plant our crops. I thought about planting the areas inside, but soon dropped the idea.

Lily already had her plans with this part. Also it wasn't that big to begin with.

Using my long stored treasure for such a small scale area? No way I was going to do it this way!

I would prefer to make her extend another series of walls and defences outside the capital to secure the crop fields. After all, it wasn't that easy to plant and wait for these plants to mature.

So I had to make sure to safeguard against any monster invasion in the future. As for other races, I doubted anyone would dare to step foot so close to here.

Well… All except for that mysteriously annoying foe of mine!

I looked high in the sky. The dim world here was getting a faint layer of light that was a sign for the rise up of the suns.

It was just the perfect time to plant. But what should we grow here to eat?

This wasn't an easy or hard question to answer.

If one thought about using the old crops before the time of the apocalypse to grow then failure would be his only result.

One had to buy seeds from the market. Of course just opening the market and searching for seeds to grow gave me a long list of things to grow.

But I knew at the start, we couldn't plant anything.

Why crops wouldn't grow in the apocalypse? This was the million dollar question in the early and mid phases of the apocalypse.

Why humans always failed to grow anything, while other races did with such ease?

At first people thought these races brought over corps from their worlds. But soon everyone knew that their worlds merged with Earth at some point, and that wasn't the case.

528 Gather Up Farmers

Many even saw with their eyes the grand stretching big fields filled with different and weird looking corps.

So the next answer was to get seeds from the market to plant. But that didn't also yield any results.

People thought it was the fault of the weird atmosphere here. After all, to plant anything, one had to be precise with how much light and darkness the plant would get, the amount of water, and etc.

But this problem was unsolved. Who could change the nature of the world? None! So for a long time, search stopped there until one day the unknown knowledge was acquired by one kingdom from another race.

I read this kingdom paid a hefty price for that, even promising to fight for that race just like how Selvators ended up serving me.

And by then, people got the answer. It was something no one thought about.

It wasn't the problem of the world, not the problem of seeds… It was the way of planting them!

The apocalypse plants needed much denser energy than anything else. Even some records described it as if it was equal to the energy needed to open a cultivation base for any human..

The energy wasn't meant for the corps actually, but for the ground itself. After all, corps grew from developing their roots deeply in the ground, eating away minerals and energy from there.

What we lacked was the nature of Earth itself. The alien worlds that came here and merged with us were all controlled by their races.

Humans only controlled small pieces of Earth. The amount of energy in our Earth wasn't even close to what other worlds had.

I didn't know what these races did to have such obvious differences.

Anyway, I got this knowledge before coming here as it was stated clearly in many records. So from day one, I started to work and secure this.

And I got something enough to turn half of Earth into apocalyptic friendly fertile land, suitable to grow anything.

Going all out from the start wasn't wise. According to tests done in early years when humans got the knowledge, not all crops yielded the same results.

Some of them didn't even grow an inch! Many took long years to give their harvest. So I knew not all the seeds could be used.

I started looking for the suitable ones to be used, those that could solve lots of problems.

Food wasn't the only problem we had. For example there were crops that would give silk, material used to make clothes.

Others gave rich energy beads like harvest that could be used in making potions and pills.

Plants were the ground base of industry, and I had to seriously consider what to grow first.

"Are you ready?" As I was overwhelmed by checking the large list of names in the market, Hilary's weak and sleepy voice came from behind.

"I promised you to be here when I do it," I said in defence, "if you don't want to, you can return back to bed."

"Without you around, bed is boring and cold as lonely nights," she seemed to be a much gentler person after bedtime.

"Ahem," from the side, Angelica cleared her throat, attracting the half sleeping chick of mine in her presence.

"What?" Hilary rolled her eyes in response, seemingly returning slowly to her old self.

"Nothing," Angelica shrugged, while her mouth tilted in such a sly way, "are we going to start planting vegetables and wheat now?"

"Wheat? Vegetables?" I said in response, "don't think like this. We will plant other stuff, similar in use actually, but they aren't the same as what you had in mind."

"Is that for real?!" Angelica said in surprise and doubt, "what are we going to grow then?"

"First we will start with Lockers," I said as I started purchasing the seeds of this plant in large quantities, "they are used in the same way as wheat, grinded and used to make yellow flowers."

"Yellow flower? Is that drug or what?" Hilary laughed, but I totally ignored her remark.

"This flower can be used like wheat, making bread and other food. Also we are going to plant lots of Macaron, a plant that will give beads like harvest, used to add good flavour to any food and can be eaten alone in raw form…"

I started to speak about the different types of crops in the apocalypse while buying the names I said in large amounts. In fact the basic price of these weren't that high, considering the lack of interest for them at this point.

All races here were busy dealing with the apocalypse… Well, all but my people.

Right now I got that crazy jumper running around and controlling the southern lands. As for my kingdom, my controlled monsters were roaming and fighting there, securing things here.

So it wasn't that stressful or distressing for us. Except for that jerk's incident, we got nothing else to worry about.

"Go, gather up the farmers you selected and let them come to my chariot," I said to Angelica while excluding Hilary from this.

"What about her?" Angelica seemed to complain about the unfair treatment I just showed the two girls.

"Can't you see she isn't fully awake yet?" I shook my head in response before adding, "go, let's not waste more time. The suns are almost on the brink of coming up. We don't want to miss early light and warmth."

"Ok," she didn't get anything from what I said, and I didn't intend to explain myself. She left while Hilary watched me with such curious eyes.

"Don't ask, just watch and learn," I said to cut the path on her to ask about anything.

"I hope you don't just do some crazy stuff or even worse…" she paused and when I gave her a questionable gaze, she added, "like failing in what you promised."

"Do you think I'm bluffing?"

"From a person who saw many apocalypses to someone who came from the future of one, I can tell you growing crops here is impossible."

"Not to me," I laughed, "just watch and I promise, you'll get a huge shock."

"We'll see…" she ended this talk by saying this. And I could only smile in silence while leading my chariot towards the big lands outside the imaginary walls I was seeing in my mind surrounding my bustling capital.

529 Blue Unicorn Spears

As Angelica was busy dealing with the order I gave to her, I had to think about something else.

"Are you aware of any big river running nearby?" I turned to Hilary and she seemed to struggle for a second before saying:

"I recall two actually… The nearest is called Merrimack river, and the furthest away is Connecticut river. Which one do you seek?"

"The closest…" I returned to look at the horizon, "for now at least…"

I knew my way was able to turn almost half of the entire planet into a green and fertile soil. But I had first to start small, to be able to defend what I'd build here.

So the first choice would be that closest river. As for later on, I'd go for further rivers as well.

Rivers were important to my plan. Not only were they a needed source of water, but I needed them to cause the changes in the ground around it as well.

"Are you asking this for water?" Hilary waved her arm around, "we are in an area filled with many lakes. You can use the water there for that.".

"Not even close enough," I shook my head slowly, without explaining further, "is that river away?"

"I believe it's not that far from here… Do you want to go there now?"

"Let's wait for the farmers first," I turned my eyes to scan the sky. The dimness there was getting slowly pushed away.

Sunrise in old times before the apocalypse would take almost an hour to happen. But in our times, it would take close to ten hours.

So we got time to prepare and finish what we had to do.

"They are here," we didn't need to wait for longer than half an hour to see the early batches of farmers coming here.

Calling them farmers was a mistake indeed. They were all cladded in heavy armour, wearing like anyone else would.

They even got weapons, and many had these weapons unsheathed.

It seemed they were still in a state of shock of such drastic change in their destiny, not wanting to let go even of their weapons, as if they were in a dream they feared to wake up from.

"Time to get them to work," I opened my marker, while feeling a little melancholic.

When I did that in the past, I was meticulously calculating my little coins and even had to sell many of my items to secure what I needed back then.

But right now I am a tycoon! I simply wrote the name of the item I wanted in the search bar, and started a spree of purchasing without any pause.

[The stache of the blue unicorn spears you bid for is inside your inventory]

[The stache of the blue unicorn spears you bid for is inside your inventory]

[The stache of the blue unicorn spears you bid for is inside your inventory]

.

.

[The stache of the blue unicorn spears you bid for is inside your inventory]

[The stache of the blue unicorn spears you bid for is inside your inventory]

[The stache of the blue unicorn spears you bid for is inside your inventory]

Long rows of messages appeared in front of my eyes, and I didn't stop my hand purchasing all the spears I could get.

Yes… They were the spears that once saved my and that jumper's lives back at Central Park. We faced a deadly attack of star beams at that time, and we survived thanks to that.

But that day I did something, gathered up and filtered the deadly energy of the red beams and stilled them into shining thick liquid.

And since that day, the twelve Liquors containing this precious material were stored in my inventory, covered in thick layers of dust by now.

And now… It was time to clean all the dust and bring this magical liquid on the stage of the apocalypse.

In fact I didn't plan on getting such material early on. But things developed back then and I had to face the retribution from angels for getting my class.

The jumper was there by luck. And my luck was always better than any other in the apocalypse so far.

I saw the chance, and didn't let it slip off my hands. I didn't try to do it again as I had enough to sustain my needs.

"Tell them to scatter in regular intervals," I said without shifting my eyes off the market interface, "tell them to distance a mile away from each other, not a step further, not a step closer… Do you get it?"

"What for?"

"You'll know soon enough," I had to purchase a massive amount of my spears. These darlings did great before, and it was time for them to shine again.

From my side, Hilary had to shout to give orders to people down below. Once Angelica got the word, she started to distribute it among everyone.

I could hear the clamour of their armours while moving around, making me inwardly sigh.

"We need farming tools," after half an hour of fervently purchasing spears, I searched for other items.

These farmers were looking just like my fighters. I had to let them switch their weapons for farming tools. Or what was the benefit of their presence here?

I bought lots of farming tools. And luckily their prices weren't that sky high yet. No one was taking this step so early on in the apocalypse, so there was no competition at all.

I found many good things, like big machines that would pile large spaces of land and arrange soil to be planted.

I also found tools used to distribute water evenly, even many tools to support the growing plants and care for them while the farmers weren't around.

I bought anything I found, and bought them in large quantities. Many tools were used by us, others were moving on their own. The latter needed a stable source of energy to run, and I got my stat crystals for that.

530 Giving Them What I Bought

But I found in the market low grade energy sources that were much cheaper and more suitable. So I bought these instead and decided to use them in running these machines.

"I'm ready," after two hours of searching and purchasing, I bought tons of these items and their supplies. Alongside the seeds and the spears I bought earlier, I was sure my inventory was now doubled at least in size.

Once I looked outside, I saw the farmers standing as I said before. Each was one hundred metre away from the other, making the ground look like they were covered in human made carpet.

"Angelica… Bring your boys here for a sec," I shouted at the nearby Angelica and gave her such an order.

"Are we ready to start?" Hilary stood by my side all silent during this time. She seemed to grow extremely curious, itching to know what I was going to do.

"Almost," I said, "we just need to finalise a few things first."

"Yes, lord," Angelica acted in such a way while her team was present. The few thousand elites stood in respect, while Hilary was on her toes next to me, waiting to see what I was going to do.

*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*.

Without waiting any further, I started taking all the spears I bought. Each stache had twenty spears, and I bought tons of these.

"Distribute these over everyone," I said, "let them hold one spear and point its tips towards the ground. Make sure the tip is just one inch above the ground, not touching it. The second spear will be raised high in the sky, with its tip pointing upwards."

"So… Each one will have two?" Angelica asked from down below, and I nodded as an answer.

"Wait…" as her men were about to execute the order, I hurriedly stopped them.

*Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*

*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*

I took out other piles of farming tools that I bought earlier, as well as the items and machines I bought to help.

"Distribute the farming tools over them," I said, "make sure they store away their weapons. Seeing them wielding swords, spears, and hammers made me feel like they are fighters and not farmers."

"But… The world here isn't safe," Hilary argued from the side.

"I didn't say to throw their weapons away. But as we are going to plant, they have to be ready… Oh wait, not yet!"

As I was responding to Hilary, Angelica's men seemed so impatient to execute my words. I had to stop them, as the last piece was still missing.

Or actually two…

*Boom!*

This time the sound of the item I got shocked the entire world with a loud booming. It was a gigantic basin, one that was over three hundred metres in length, one hundred in width, and twenty metres in height.

"This…"

"Just wait," I flew over the basin and first I took out a small bead that I bought with a large sum of coins.

[The bead of magic: Rare grade item. Getting into contact with any form of energy, it can dilute it using the world's energy and bring a milder form of it. Takes one hour to produce results. Can be used once]

It was a bead the size of a big pearl, enough for me to close my fist over it. It had such a glistering rough brown surface, while it seemed much heavier than what it looked from outside.

"Is this… A jewel?" Hilary came closer to inspect it, but as she did, I stretched my arm outside my chariot, and let it drop down to the centre of the basin.

*Tuck!*

A muffled sound came while Hilary gave me a weird look. I didn't say anything to justify what I did, took out one of the twelve treasured red liquid liquor and started to empty it.

The liquid that came from it was shining like I just collected it now. It was thicker than I recalled, and it took almost ten minutes to empty the liquor.

The size of this liquid wasn't even enough to fill one tenth of that basin. It just formed a small red glistering pond at the centre of it, not looking anything special.

"This…"

"We will leave it to do its magic," I simply said while with my Hawk Eye skill, I could see faint bubbles popping up one after another at a slow rate.

I knew the pearl was just getting started. Soon, this basin would be filled with enough diluted red liquid for farmers to use.

"Then?" Hilary didn't get any of what I just did. And I didn't speak to her, but to Angelica.

"Spread my words, in one hour time, let your men come here and fill these balls with the liquid from this basin," I waved my arm, and a large number of special materials looking like small glass balls appeared in front of everyone's eyes.

"How can we…" Angelica seemed to be as startled as Hilary.

"Just hold the ball, touch the basin and wait for a few seconds and it will get filled," I explained what puzzled her. Of course this basin was colossal, with no outlet to release what was inside it.

"What are these used for?" Hilary asked.

"You will let the farmers bury one ball under their feet," I said in a loud tone, as if Angelica was the one to ask this, not Hilary, "make sure the tip of the spear pointing towards this ball, not shifting an inch away from it."

I had to stress over this point, as it was very crucial, "failing to do so will make our effort be wasted. So make sure to let them get to this point."

"Got… It…" Angelica wasn't even getting what was the point of all this. So she seemed a little enthusiastic about this. However I ignored what she was feeling, what others were feeling, and continued to take the last thing out.

*Splash!*

Like a fountain giving birth to endless water, I just waved my arm at an empty spot nearby and a gush of seeds came out.

531 Modifying Merrimack River

Each group of seeds were stored inside a stack of black small pieces of clothes. I took the seeds of different plants and sorted them out from the start.

"These are the seeds, distribute one stache for one farmer. Tell them once I give the signal, they will spread the seeds around. They can use whatever planting technique they know of, but make sure to plant all the amount.

The staches looked small, but I knew each contained at least a thousand seeds. That meant each farmer could plant a thousand plants in the space he controlled.

Of course planting such a large number wasn't good. But I knew not all were going to grow up. Also I wanted to select the best growing plants out of all, and unearth the weak or failed ones.

Out of each thousand seeds, if I got ten in the end, I'd be satisfied.

"Start working now," it seemed the boys down below hesitated to move. Each time they did, I stopped them. So I had to give them the order before watching them work.

"Is this… Going to work?" from my side, Hilary asked in doubt.

"Let's first go to that river… Do you know where it runs?" I didn't answer again the same question she kept asking many times in different ways.

"The Merrimack river?".

"What else?" I rolled my eyes, "do you know where it lies?"

"Just… Go there," she selected a direction and I started flying fast towards it. During this, I looked for once at the ground, seeing Angelica and her people working as fast as they could.

"Are they going to be alright?"

"I just gave a few orders, nothing more," I knew she was referring to the fact that no one here knew what I was doing.

But I didn't have to explain myself. Soon enough, everyone would get to see what all this was for.

If they were going to experience the magic, why would I spoil it?

After flying for almost half an hour, and after we crossed over the last group of humans, I saw the river I was looking for.

It was moving in a curved path, moving so wide and far, extending from south all the way to north.

It was a nice river, a nice start.

"What are you going to do with it? Spill that weird red liquid over it?"

"Impressive! You guessed it right!" I knew she said it in just a mocking way, but she guessed it right. I was just going to do exactly as she said.

"Really?" she raised both eyebrows, and I didn't say more.

In a minute or two, she would see everything with her own eyes.

But throwing my precious liquid just like that wasn't going to work. I had to use a thing first.

"This…"

I took out two giant spears, looking like the spears I got out before but they were ten times larger.

I held the two with my right arm like they were nothing, threw the two in the air before moving my chariot fast after them.

My simple throw was enough to send these two big spears flying for half a mile, one to each direction.

"Wait here," I held my rope and instantly jumped off. As I was in air, I turned around, grabbed that spear near me, and slammed it fiercely towards the river waters.

*Splash!*

It got pierced through the ground without any resistance from the running river water. It just caused a small disturbance, but not that much.

"Next one," my chariot flashed fast and with the rope, my body got dragged fast towards the opposite side.

It… Was fun to do that!

"These are… For what?!" As I did the same with the second spear, I returned to the chariot again and Hilary welcomed me with such a puzzled question.

"You will see now," I moved to the area in between the two spears, took another pearl like before and let it fall in the centre. Then I took one liquor out and started dropping the thick red liquid.

This time I didn't empty the liquor, only let a small part fall for twenty seconds and then took it back inside my inventory.

*Buzz!*

And just as I did it, the water of the river started to churn. The reaction this time was much fiercer and faster than before.

That was for a reason. The pearl landed in water, so it had a medium to work with. Also the two spears acted as energy channel systems, accelerating this process.

I wasn't aiming at this when I used them. I just wanted the two to work as two mighty walls to prevent the energy from dissipating to the entire river.

Also I wanted them to work like antena, spreading the energy to other spears I left behind.

But such an unexpected result wasn't bad. I stood over the chariot, watching the pure river water turning all red, like a dye was thrown there or something.

"Is this… Normal?!!" Hilary was taken aback with all the bubbles appealing in this part of the river.

She didn't have time to inspect the bottom of the basin back then. If so, she wouldn't be this surprised.

"It's fine," I simply said, while watching the changes here.

She didn't see it as she didn't know what to look at, but I saw the ground near the river to slightly get a faint red lustre to it. The soil around the river was getting affected, and this was something great.

This all happened just in the first few minutes after using my way. If this was left for a few months, then the entire zone around would show big changes.

But I didn't want to waste months like this. I decided to go to the second river and start the changes there. I had to wait for a long time before expanding my planting area. So it would work better this way.

From time to time, I had to check over the distance where my farmers were. From the general look of it, they listened to my orders and started replacing their weapons with farming tools that I brought.

532 Now... We Need To Wait!

I saw them holding the spears like I instructed. They were ready, and all that was missing now was for the big basin and the bead in its bottom to work its magic.

"Are we… Going to wait for much longer?"

This wasn't the first time for her to ask such a question to me. I once told her to wait, and starting from there I kept ignoring her.

This didn't stop her it seemed, only getting her much itcher to know what was going to happen. Curiosity was a significant feature of the human race, but in girls… It was a true nightmare!

"I believe… It's ready," after more than one hour, I said while watching the far distance. It was time for Hilary and her boys to start filling the bottles I left behind, and distribute them over the farmers.

It took almost half an hour for the rear ones to get their share. And once everyone got the bottles, I started to act.

"A bomb?!!" I got out a grenade, one that resembled the grenades I used to use in previous battles..

"This one here is little different," I bought this baby with over one hundred million coins alone. It wasn't just a normal grenade, but one that would force out any energy around.

Any grenade would detonate and release a gust of wind, but this baby here who was the size of a human head, would release a gust of energy.

"Get ready to see the magic," I said with a grin before pressing a button on the surface of this grenade before letting it fall in the river.

It fell just at the place of the bead from before. And once it hit water, once it got in contact with the slightly dark red liquid filled with immense energy, it exploded.

The explosion was a silent one, but it released a pillar of red water high in the air, enough to reach the height of my chariot.

My shield worked as usual and prevented a single drop from reaching me or Hilary, but that didn't end there.

The gust of energy exploded from this part of the river and was visible in a faint red way. But as soon as a big arc appeared, it got stopped by a hidden force coming from the two spears I planted before.

They were acting as my control units. So even with the fierce grenade, it couldn't escape the clutches of these two spears.

Then like glutinous and thirsty little beasts, the two spears started to absorb the red wave of energy that extended for two hundred metres in length and fifty in height.

The wave broke into two, forming two thick pillars of red water that went fast and vanished in the two big spears.

"Let's go and watch the good show," I hurriedly controlled my chariot to fly higher and go slowly towards the direction of my boys.

From such a high altitude, I could clearly see everything happening down there. I didn't dare to move until I got that everything was going as planned at the river side.

And all that was left now was the farmer's side. Hopefully they would do as I said, or else such a chance would be missed and spoiled.

From this high, I could see many small spots of redness appearing down below.

Without the need to look, I knew each dot came from one farmer spot. Each farmer held two spears, one at top meant to absorb the wave of energy released from the two spears, and the one at bottom was meant to channel it towards the ground.

And the bottles they got would accelerate the spreading process of this energy, letting soil become rich with such energy.

From my side, Hilary stood all silent while watching all this happen. She wasn't that stupid to not link the dots, but she still missed the core theory here.

"Why are you using all this to make ground filled with this red energy?" This was what she missed, the simple knowledge that would make all the difference.

"We failed at growing anything before because the level of energy wasn't enough…" I started to simplify the facts and break them down piece by piece.

The more I talked, the brighter the glimmer in her eyes became. Unveiling all the mystery and fog off her eyes by explaining this simple theory made her get what she couldn't before.

"So… This was why… Damn!" she sighed, seemingly feeling deep regret for not thinking about such a simple concept before.

"What?"

"It's just… Too damn simple! It was all the time in front of my eyes! And I still didn't get it!"

"Just because you are smart, doesn't mean you can get to know everything," I bragged in front of her, despite knowing for sure I wasn't the one to break down such mystery.

I just was fortunate enough to live in a time where such a problem was solved. I got to read what others struggled so much to get to know, a blessing and a real show of knowledge power.

"What now?" she returned to look down at the ground, "what we shall do now?"

"We just need to wait," I shrugged, "let the ground get soaked with energy before planting the seeds."

"Will this be enough?"

"It won't, but with the running water of that part I changed, we can keep the energy flow constant," I knew she got the weakness of this tactic. After all, the ground was so damn thirsty for energy.

Using this amount wasn't enough to satisfy its thirst. So we would use the running water river to make sure the energy level wouldn't go down.

As for this, it would be the job of those farmers. Or else why would I seek farmers in the first place? If they wouldn't help here, then they had no value for me over anyone else.

"What about… The growing time of these seeds? When can we harvest them?"

"You are so impatient," I laughed before adding, "let's hope in less than one month, most of these will grow enough to give harvest."

533 Let's Dig The Capital!

I didn't wait for too long actually. In less than two hours, and just as the rays of the suns were close to shine bright, the ground down below was dyed all red.

"It's time," I said before controlling my chariot and releasing the beam wave. "Let's start farming!"

I shouted and during the next minutes, farmers down below started to plant the seeds.

I saw many just throwing the seeds around, while others went to plant the seeds manually.

Whatever they used, they had to get it done before the suns' rise.

It didn't take long before the group of our suns appeared high in the sky. And with the sudden shine of light that dominated Earth,

"What now?" Hilary was anxiously watching what was going on.

"Let's give the suns the chance to do their magic," I said before adding with a grin, "after all we needed water, energy, and sun rays for any plant to grow, right?"

I didn't know if she noticed it or not, but the ground that was dyed red before started to show a faint lustre of orange colour.

It meant the ground was absorbing the energy of the sun, storing it up. And that was how even in dark times, the plants never died..

"This…" she finally noticed, "the ground… It's changing!!!" she turned to me while I simply shrugged.

"Now what?"

"Now? We just left the job for the experienced folks here," I said as with this, the farming problem was solved.

"That's… It?!" she asked in much doubt.

"What? Isn't that show enough for you?" I raised both of my eyebrows. What was this girl waiting for? A magic show of fireworks and magically the plants would grow and yield?

"…"

She seemed to get totally absorbed in watching my magic tricks to wait for more. Sorry chick, the show was over.

"Let's go back," I commanded my chariot to descend, looking for Angelica before finding her standing beside the big basin.

Even when she filled millions of bottles, the basin was still filled with red liquid.

It wasn't deep sparkling red like before, only faint red that even showed the depth of the basin.

Yet the deeper one looked, the darker the red colour became.

"Our work is done here," I shouted at her, "gather up your men and let's return together."

She and her elites did such a marvellous job here. So it just felt right to let them return while boarding my chariot.

"What about here?" she asked, letting me feel she was the same as Hilary.

"We are done here, just let the experts do their work," I said while adding, "let's go back together."

"Ok."

They boarded my chariot and came on board while Angelica stood by my side alongside Hilary.

"This…" even when we returned back to the capital, Hilary was still shocked. Unlike Angelica, who seemed to enjoy this as a magic show, Hilary knew how hard it was to achieve this feat.

"Don't think too much about it," I said, "the apocalypse is so damn huge. Many secrets are there for all of us to unveil."

"Then… What's now?" Angelica asked.

"You found workers, right?" I paused while letting my chariot descend to the ground.

"We have lots of them," Angelica nodded.

"And we can add the normal people to help as well," Hilary seemed to read through my mind.

"Do what?" but Angelica didn't get what the two of us were talking about.

"We can use their help, but…" I paused when I noticed Isac coming on board at this moment, "we need ores, strong enough to make the foundation of our new capital."

"We can fetch people to look for that around," Isac came and added, "any world in the apocalypse will have rich resources."

"I know, but…" I turned to look at the two girls, "how many miners do we have?"

"Miners? Not that much… Around a couple tens of thousands I recall…" Hilary looked at Angelica who said with obvious hesitation.

"Hmm… Might work," I knew that depending on such numbers alone wasn't going to do us any good.

But how do we think when we have the market? We could buy a lot of gear and items to help these people do their task.

"Do you have a list of materials in your mind?" I opened the market and started another spree of purchasing. It just felt too good to have such wealth and power.

"I have," Isac answered with a strong tone.

"Tell these to these two," I said, "then you will gather the miners, distribute these things over to them before spreading them around… Don't make them search too far away."

"We can send a group of fighters with them," Hilary proposed.

"Not a bad idea, but we have to assign people to fetch the ores back here," I finished buying lots of gears before taking them out.

"These will help," I said, "also we need to start digging and preparing the place here."

"Digging?" Angelica was surprised, but Hilary wasn't.

"I'll arrange for normal people to do this… But we lack the needed designs to do so."

"Isac…"

"Here," Isac handed the pile of papers she took before to Hilary.

"No, this won't work," I knew Hilary was capable of reading such detailed drawings. But it would be more suitable for the one who did it to be present and supervise over the whole process, "you will handle this task."

"Me?"

"Him?"

Isac and Hilary spoke at the same time, making me inwardly laugh.

"Yes, he will handle this. After all she was the one who drew everything. Ah, I just planted a big deal of land outside. Make sure to add more defences there to help and secure what we are growing."

"I already did that," Isac seemed to get herself busy during the past hours I didn't see her in.

"Good job," I patted on her shoulder as if I was patting on the spearhead or Leo, "keep doing it."

"Uhm," she nodded, seemingly baffled by what I just did. Oh girl, you should muster your act a little more, especially in front of such a fierce tigress.