212. Exaltation - 05

212. Exaltation - 05

" It looks like the Holy Crusader and the great general worked hard," Zolast said as he entered. He avoided their names to the benefit of the sixteen new recruits that we had just collected.

Recruits that were lying on the ground, demolished completely to the point that they couldn't even move. My recently recruited, and even more recently named worshippers.

Sixteen Shades. It had a nice ring to it, like one of those knightly orders people loved so much.

My accelerated training had been painful, but that was inevitable. They might be armed with two Master Skills and an Awakened skill each, but that didn't begin to come close to my seal of approval.

But, after an extended, painful session that drilled the basics of combat, as well as a way to resist Charisma, they had earned their first point on that path. The rest of the training had to depend on Takis, who would be their commander as they worked to clean the mountains.

I wondered how he would train them. I had no specific requests from Takis, and that was not because I underestimated those guys and their classes. No, I could train every single one into decent fighters, ones that were able to operate alone, with the ability to take down a level hundred knight with a rare class by creating a favorable strategy

But I also knew that it was not the best way to maximize their value. If I did that, they would turn into inferior versions of Mahruss and Karak, their religious devotion preventing them from developing the flexibility I required. Ultimately, they lacked the sense of practicality I needed to trust them with critical tasks.

That didn't mean they were worthless. Takis was a strategic genius even without factoring in the benefits from his stats which went even further once he managed to Awaken them. I was confident that he would find a much better way to utilize them as a team rather than using them as church enforcers.

Sixteen of them, together as a team, each with awakened stats, and specialized gear

The perfect kill squad.

Speaking of gear "High Priest, do you mind healing them so they could go and pick up their gear," I said. Zolast waved his hand, the healing magic replenishing their Health which I had deliberately drained to zero to properly teach about resisting the pressure of the Charisma while they were exhausted and damaged and quickening their recovery at the same time.

They bowed respectfully and left, leaving me alone with Zolast. "Well, that was better than sorting skill stones, at least," I said.

"Don't be a child, it wasn't that bad," he admonished, trying to sound serious, but his smile disagreed.

"Certainly not. You're the one that forced a god to work as a mere assistant," I said. "You should know that, considering I am now a god, I'm entitled to be a spoiled, lazy bastard and let my little followers work for me."

"Heresy " he started, then paused with a thoughtful expression. "Does this count as heresy now that you're technically one of them," he said, then paused for a chuckle. "Barely an apprentice, from the looks of it, but still"

I shrugged. "I'll ask Set during our next inevitable discussion. I'm sure he will be a nice guy and explain."

"I'm sure of it. His jolly attitude is famous."

"Speaking of Set, do we have anything to deal with before we go and check up on the siege? Mahruss already gathered the army, and the sooner we improved them, the sooner they moved to the mountains and started leveling up. And, I want to stay near at first to prevent cultists from pulling a trick."

"I thought you were going to leave them alone and focus on searching for Jertann."Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience

"Multitasking, my friend. This time, I'm not going alone, but bringing with me our newest recruits. It'll take a while to properly test the new recruits Mahruss had picked to decide which ones are a good fit for the mission, and I can easily do that in the mountains as well."

"True. And, that way, I can focus on finishing the dungeon," he added. "Our experimentation taught me quite a few things about building a dungeon."

"Speaking of which, try to wheedle some secrets from the princess about dungeon construction. You're better than them, but that's only because you're much more capable when it comes to the arcane. The royal family inevitably has a lot of little secrets, maybe her mages know some of them."

It was important, because the only reason we even managed to improve the dungeon enough to mass-produce Expert Skills was his extreme magical control, essentially brute-forcing many complicated problems with his magical skills where a specific spell or material would have worked much better.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

That earned me a deadpan expression. "Thanks, our glorious leader. I never thought of that."

"Think of it as a divine gift of wisdom," I said in an exaggerated smug manner, before letting my expression fade back to normal. "Still, a productive two-day streak, don't you think so?"

He left, and I walked to the special leveling room, with wards strong enough to handle the inevitable side effects.

After a few glows, I reached a new level of power. However, I didn't touch my stat points. Reaching above level hundred was not a guarantee, and while getting even stronger was tempting, I didn't want to lose my flexibility.

I needed to be ready for many types of possible surprises.

[Class: Hero

Level: 90

[Authority: 1,000,000]

[Health (2,400/2,400)

Mana (1,500/1,500)]

[STATS

Strength: 80

Agility: 100

Speed: 100

Vitality: 80

Attunement: 50

Perception: 80

Concealment: 50

Charisma: 100

Resilience: 50

Memory: 25

Intelligence: 25

LOCKED]

[Stat Points: 155]

[SKILLS: ]

[ABILITIES: Elevated Life - Complete - Human

Heroic Party (8) ]

[Alignment: Unaligned]