40 days have passed since I gathered the children and the tribals here at the central mountain. In those 40 days, drastic changes have occurred to basecamp. First, I can no longer call it a basecamp, but a somewhat decent stronghold!
After the first 5 days, the tribals and the children all set out to the quarry. They intended on further developing the stronghold, felling more trees to build a wall surrounding the entire area we would be using. Originally, I had cleared land for habitation and farming within 1km radius of the central mountain.
8 days later, the overall area expanded to a 3km radius with the mountain at the center by the tribals, placing the outermost wall at a distance of 2km radius from the central mountain, the middle wall at a 1km radius, and innermost wall at a 600m radius. The closer the walls were to the central stronghold, the taller, thicker, and more heavily fortified they became. As a result, the tribals and the children began to divide themselves up within each ring of the stronghold.
Next, the quarry had been fortified, now a deathtrap for any enemy who would try to attack. Additionally, the quarry and cave network are constantly being mined and expanded to keep up with the higher demand for resources. In good news, the cave network turned out to be even richer in normal and magic metals than I had first surveyed. With this increased stone and ore output from the quarry and mine, I was able to fit all the children and strong tribals with high quality weapons and armor.
As mentioned earlier, with the building of the walls, the children and tribals were divided based on their assigned roles in the stronghold. The division went as follows: outer ring contained combat focused children clans and Tribal Hunters/Warriors. Middle Ring contained Tribal farmers, cattle husbandmen, and specialized herbalists. Lastly, the inner ring contained the children and Tribal craftsmen of all specialties. With every able body person being designated to a craft and area, overall development improved.
After 20 days, the stronghold was bustling with activity as it now appeared to be a well-fortified city of sorts. Additionally, the hunters had located other tribal villages in places I had overlooked. These villages originally were not in the eastern area of the forest but scattered all over.
They too were brought to the shrine area and were enlightened. This was the only way to enhance their ability for communication and grant them all they needed for magoi manipulation. With the new tribals joining the fold, their numbers have reached 25,000 and growing which is still a droplet compared to the 1 billion children divided into 100 clans.
Speaking of the children, much as progressed with their development. In the last 20 days, I have improved the inscriptions on their magoi cores and shards twice. With the new improvements they have now truly splintered into differing clans. These clans not only had their own appearance and racial traits, but also habit and environmental preferences.
For instance, the children clan which has a heightened affinity for earth, light and nature, had forest green hair, light brown almost orange complexion and their horns took on a more tree branch-like appearance with leaves, flowers, and fruit spouting from them. This clan decided to live in the middle circle and assist with all agricultural needs as well as developing a controlled forest with a large variety tree species within the middle ring.
Likewise, the clan that had a greater affinity for earth, water, and darkness, appeared to have a more earthen complexion with grey hair and ram's horns. Their bodies where much taller than the others and developed earthen spear-like spike on their back. They eventually decided setup camp at the quarry and mines.
After settling in, the swiftly gathered more stone, metals and liquified magoi from the underground lake I first identified. They then found other liquified magoi lakes and streams hidden underground. All 100 clans began to exhibit these differences which help improve our development. Because of their continued evolution, we gained another 15 days of prep time, only for me to lose 5 days for the new tribals being enlightened.
I am now 100% sure this trial wants me to focus on the development of monster species. Followed by converting them into members of the races. Finally, periodically enhancing them until they are able to develop naturally on their own.
This would explain why the Abyssal Treant was cloning the Midknight elf Elder and creating wood elves and abyssal elves left and right in hopes of restoring Midknight elves to their former glory while providing enhanced traits. Yet, I am still not sure whether or not this dungeon was the work of the demonic dragons, the Nexus or someone on Ohmdorra trying to restore races that have gone extinct due to the demonic dragon invasion.
Regardless, my current objective is to complete this trial. With this mindset, I continued to forge tools, equipment, clothes and instructed the tribals and children clans on magoi manipulation. (Of course, I made set aside time for myself. I'm not that much of a workaholic!)
For those who have shown great promise, I have provided them arcane arts for them to study and practice depending on their affinity and capabilities. Whereas all tribals and children clans were taught uncle's mana manipulation technique to the highest level. I have even noticed some are almost ready to forge their mana palaces, which is an exceptionally good thing.
Moving on, whenever I was not crafting, instructing, or overseeing the development of the stronghold, I would go to the shrine area. This place is now guarded by the children clan who have an affinity to light, air, and fire. They have an exceptionally light complexion when co0mpared to their brethren. They heads are adorn with hazel hair and small feathered wings which wrap their heads like wreaths instead of horns.
Additionally, they are the first clan to develop actual wings on their backs which matched their head wings. This clan guards the shrine alongside a few tribals who also have a higher affinity and capability for light, neutral, nature and air magoi. Thus they stay here to tend to the shrine and enlighten the new tribals found across the forest.
Occasionally, I reinforce, modify, and add to the magic circle which is now the hollow tree with five shrines inside. The modifications involve me inscribing different celestial runes within the internal and external bark of the hollowed tree. This in turn has made the tree grow even greater as it transformed into a 3-dimensional magic circle riddle with small inscriptions.
Each inscription ran across the tree's surface like tiny splinters neatly compact together, covering the entire exterior and interior of the tree. Further, magoi clouds have begun to spread across the territory from here, raining down extremely pure liquified magoi onto everything; increasing the magoi density of the forest and allowing the tribals and children to develop at lightning pace.
The last modification I had added to the shrine were decahedron magoi crystals of all the elements. These crystals were mined in the cave network where all the liquified magoi streams meet. The underground lake is double the size of the one I found and surprisingly is located where the monster cradle to the north is.
Meaning, the children clan at the quarry and cave network, have expanded extremely far below the earth and towards the north! Anyway, these decahedron magoi crystals were the size of an ordinary kitchen stove and oven, with thousands of inscriptions on them. I placed the fire, wind, water, and earth crystals on their corresponding altar. Whereas the remaining six elements where placed in a hexagram array surrounding the central most altar.
Once finished with the modifications, the shrine activated on its own as the altars absorbed the new energy from the magoi crystals and reshaped them until all of the crystals took on the form of Roman dodecahedrons with orbs of pure energy visibly in the center of each crystal. Finishing here, I would no longer need to modify the shrine as it would now automatically improve and enhance itself, with copious amounts of pure magoi radiating from this place as a byproduct.
After 35 days, I had switched from building manned defense turrets to magoi automated turrets. Although I am not an Alchemic Craftsman, I still did what I could to learn from mom and Uncle Yuriy on creating defensive installations in case they would be needed. As a result, mom provided me with basic blueprints and how-to instruction on creating Novice stage sensory gargoyles and turrets, and Uncle Yuriy after 100 Earth years provided me with the knowledge of crafting Master stage auto turrets and gargoyles.
Currently however, I am only able to create Journeyman stage auto turrets and sensory towers which is more than enough. I then went to the craftsmen who specialize in Alchemic Craftsmanship and provided them my first-hand experience and the knowledge provided by both mom and uncle. This way they will be able to create Master stage defenses much faster then I, given their specialization.
When I went to go observe the aura using children clans, I was surprised and pleased with my observation. More than half of the 3 aura clans have a host of clan members who've awakened aura. There are even those who're a step away from being Grand Blademasters. (Such fast development is envious!)
Whereas a very few have yet to awaken aura. This is to be expected given how long it took me to awaken aura. After I finished observing them, I went to my personalized battalion of warriors from the children clans and a select few tribals. Of the 100 children clans, only one clan had elemental affinity similar to my own and had a high chance of awakening aura.
This clan had retained the original appearance of the children save their hair and skin complexion looked much like my own. Also, the select tribals too had elemental affinities like my own and excelled in the techniques taught for magoi development and awakening aura. This group was led by the very first member of the children who dared ask questions and speak out to me.
Given his development, I have named him Horus after the Egyptian god and had tasked him with leading these chosen warriors to be my hands and feet. All of them follow the way of the Arcane Warrior which I have been teaching them personally for 10 days. During which all have broken through to Arcane Squire. After much effort, out of all 10 million or so warriors, only 700,000 broke through to the Arcane Esquire stage, and 100,000 have entered the Mana Bladesman stage with Horus at the initial of the MagiKnight stage.
I too had developed in my cultivation. Ever since I stepped foot into this trial, I have been pushing myself to the limit. As a reward for my constant labor, I have finally broken into the peak MagiKnight stage 8 days after I began training this group. At this stage I have the same if not greater might of a Grand Blademaster and an Expert stage mage combined. However, this power has created an unexpected setback. Then again, this setback would be better known as a bottleneck.
-End of Chapter