Three days later, I was back on the road. The last couple of times we went, I'd always taken the route along the coast, but this time I decided to go inland. Grey, Vesper, Rex, and Arion also came along.
I'd only ride Arion occasionally, but I felt bad leaving him behind, so he came along. All of them were very strong, so it wasn't like they'd drag me down. I'd also been neglecting them since I entered seclusion, so this was also a trip to compensate for lost time.
Besides Garth, they were the ones I was around most. It was depressing that the closest beings to me were animals, but I could deal with that. Humans were animals, too, after all. Besides, they were just as intelligent as any humanoid.
They could communicate with words once they broke through to the eighth rank. It was a mutation that all beasts went under after attaining a certain level of power. The eighth rank was just the most common mutation point.
The first day of travel was fun, and I got to play with everyone while still making good progress. The second day, Rex, Vesper, and Grey went out to hunt, so I got to spend time with Arion. While they couldn't form words, communication through images and feelings still allowed them to be in touch.
On the third day, I began training them. They were stuck at the seventh rank, partially because they needed more time and also because they required an understanding of the forces of the world and nature.
It was also an experience to learn about their lives and how they viewed things. Communicating with people from such diverse backgrounds was very eye-opening. Rex excluded; they all had lives that continued before they met me.
Grey was ten, Arion 20, and Vesper was seven. They had lived out more than half their average life expectancy. It was only due to their magical mutation that their life spans doubled or tripled from their normal ones.
On the fourth day of our journey, we arrived a couple of miles from Umpedes. We still had the cover of the Acies forest, so I began construction on a small shrine. Here would be the circle; if anyone came across it, they would think it was an old abandoned temple.
I'd also disguise it with magic, but no one would dare defile a temple of the gods. Arclen has many religions, and it is thought that all the gods are real, even if they conflict in their stories. In the legend of the Eight Heroes, they are all chosen by their respective gods and religions to bring peace to the world.
Many miraculous acts also happen in the world that can't be explained by science or magic. I didn't believe they were "God" gods, but I did think that in a world of magic, there were people powerful enough to be considered gods.
Perhaps the "gods" were even aliens from another planet with magic. I couldn't be sure there weren't gods in a world like this.
I spent two solid days working on the shrine, building and fortifying it. It was a bit boring sometimes, but I had always liked creating things, so it wasn't too bad. The others also had good ideas on features and fortifications I could make.
After finishing the shrine, I chiseled the teleportation circle on the floor before cloaking it with another spell. The shrine was big and open, allowing me to make the circle almost 5 meters in diameter.
Only four pillars supported the roof, and the walls were kept to a minimum so that a carriage could fit through without problem. The only wall was the north-facing one, where the statues went.
I choose to have three statues of the main religions. On the left was Worwin, a respected and feared warrior god of the Boreas Empire. The right statue was of Jahwan, a mysterious creator god of the Daitya Empire.
Worwin and Jahwan were the king gods of the second and third most famous religions, respectively. In the middle stood a statue of a little-known god, one that even I didn't know the name of.
All I knew was that this god stood above the rest during the Great War 200 years ago. The god didn't belong to any religion, so it was just a little-known myth, but a god you didn't know was the scariest.
I purposefully made the middle statue vague. If any person were to stumble across this temple, if the other two gods didn't scare them off, an unknown god placed above those two would be even worse.
After I finished the temple and all the magic around it, I went out for a hunt before entering society. I wanted to play more with the others before working, and if I was making a shrine to the gods, I decided a sacrifice was in order.
The shrine was still working, even if it was a cover for the magic circle. I had no candles or incense, so an offering was the next best option.
I caught a silver doe, which I sacrificed to the gods. It was a relatively easy catch, and I didn't need to eat, so I burned the whole thing. I, of course, put it out of its misery first. I was an experienced hunter after my nomadic lifestyle in the dungeon and while traveling.
Using the memories of Grey, Vesper, and Arion, I also got a plethora of hunting knowledge. Arion had been on many hunts with his previous owners, even as an herbivore.
Rex was a bit more useless as he hunted by instinct. I also learned that Vesper was the only female in the group. It made no difference, but it was an interesting thing to know.
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After building the shrine, I quickly entered the city and headed to Oshan's place. The outside was still mostly the same, but Oshan had cleaned the inside quite nicely. He was fully recovered and doing quests for the guild, so he bought some stuff for the headquarters.
As thanks for helping out headquarters I shared some of my spells with Oshan and left him with some resources I'd stored away and forgotten about. Mainly just some money and materials for other types of magic.
A great thing about the outdoors was that you could find ingredients everywhere, and I'd gathered stuff like herbs and plants to rocks and rare minerals.
I caught up with Oshan and laid out a basic action plan. Greyhound would need to expand, and they would need people. The Greyhound group would be the easiest way to do this. Previously, I'd rescued people from slavers, but I was but a man.
More people would help, and the new magic circle would be handy to bring people over. If the Greyhound group got big enough, Greyhound itself would eventually be able to open up to the broader world.
The current thing was to recruit some people. The townspeople of Greyhound could be temporary help, but we'd need people to be here indefinitely. Oshan had people he knew, but they wouldn't be enough either.
I'd also open a recruitment at the guild, but I wasn't sure I would have any suitable applicants. The group would have to be composed of people loyal to Greyhound so they wouldn't expose our existence. That wasn't too common for people in the guild. They were mostly freelance workers.
Groups like the one the volunteer examiner belonged to were typically formed outside the guild and operated under it only for the benefits received. Their recruits would also come from outside the guild, not in it.
The Empire would be none too happy about having a bunch of people living in their territory and not paying taxes. While they couldn't conquer the heartlands, the whole island continent did belong to the Daitya Empire.
This was the problem I was thinking about as I walked to the guild. Yesterday, I slept over at headquarters, which is currently Oshan's house, so it was a short walk. I walked alongside Arion, preferring the exercise for now.
I stared absent-mindedly while walking, but one thing I caught out of the corner of my eye broke me out of it.