Chapter 25 - Village development and ANTS!!

Jack is seated next to Jessica who is sleeping peacefully when she turns over and starts to mutter in her sleep, "Jack….. do you think…. Beautiful…. Name…" she trails off and distracts Jack from his cultivation, he reaches down and touches her face to which she tries to swat off his hand while kicking off the blanket.

This movement has inadvertently caused her breasts to be exposed, Jack takes in a good look but instead notices that the little chick within the bag is looking at him without blinking, Jack moves his head where it follows his movements with its eyes.

He finds it strange and reaches out to it but just before his finger touches the chick, he receives a shock of fire energy from somewhere causing him to draw his finger back. Looking at his finger that has a slight black mark on it and the chick that had no change he doesn't try it again and covers Jessica up with the blanket.

This movement causes her to wake up and upon seeing someone looking over her sleeping figure, she lets out a scream of shock before quickly noticing that it's Jack and letting out another scream and jumping into his arms. Her sleepwear still leaving her exposed making Jack unable to really move in case he grabs something he shouldn't.

Drakon bursts into the tent but leaves quickly upon seeing what is happening within the tent signalling everyone to ignore what's going on. Jack bitterly laughs to himself over what has happened, he just wanted to cover Jessica with a blanket and now the whole village has woken up.

"Jack, in my dream we had a million animals to name and I got to name every one of them, there were so many that I named and no one made fun of the names I chose, isn't that a great dream? There was a horse named Horsy Fast Run then another…." Jessica just starts talking without caring about anything going on around her, listing all these strange names.

Jack is unsure what to do and reaches up his hand, giving one of her boobs a squeeze. Jessica stops talking and looks down at her body, she's still hugging Jack but can clearly see that she's exposed. Her face goes red as she starts to blame Jack for her situation "You're such a dirty boy that you can't wait until I'm awake? Do we need to get Amber to sleep over too? .....".

Jack scratches his head and gives her a quick kiss to stop her thinking about this sort of stuff, "We need to sleep to be ready for tomorrow, we have lots of stuff to get ready" he explains as Jessica loosens her grip, she nods her head and lets Jack into the bed properly where they sleep with their usual sleeping arrangement.

The morning arrives, Jack feels like he hasn't had any rest because Jessica wouldn't allow him to get comfortable but the whole village is abruptly awoken by the loud bleating of the Demonic Sheep. Jack quietly slips out of Jessica's grip as she somehow wasn't awoken by the bleating, making sure to cover her up properly and leaving the tent to see what's up.

He walks to the pit that the goblins were digging and contained within it is the Demonic Sheep, Maurice is dangling a piece of mutton from one of the carcasses in front of it but not letting it take a bite out of the meat causing the sheep to get frustrated. Jack walks over to Drakon who is near Maurice to find out what's going on.

"Lord, sorry for waking you up early, hope you had fun last night" Drakon says with a slight smirk. Jack has an idea of what he's talking about but chooses to ignore it and asks what's going on here.

"Maurice wants to investigate how often the sheep can launch a fireball thinking perhaps it can be used in high temperature forges, I'm not really sure you'd have to ask him as I'm just here for security." Drakon explains, Jack just nods his head and watches what Maurice is doing.

After several attempts of biting the mutton on string, the sheep finally launches a fireball at it. It lands on the piece of mutton causing the rope holding it to burn up, allowing the sheep to eat the mutton. Maurice backs away from the pit while muttering, "It's not enough" he comes to where Drakon is standing and notices Jack.

"Your Majesty, I hope that my experiment didn't wake you up, I just got so excited after seeing some of the ores you recovered yesterday" Maurice explains, Jack is confused because he doesn't remember giving Maurice any of the ores.

"That ore is one of the most important precursors to my life's work, Aeros the metal of the future" Maurice pushes up his glasses and talks with a smile, "Aeros can be used in everything from weapons to houses to carriages, you can even eat it if you are desperate enough…" Maurice starts to explain all the advantages of Aeros, this goes on far too long and he's interrupted by the sheep bleating again.

"How easy is it to make Aeros?" Jack asks, Maurice's expression stiffens as he explains sheepishly, "While the ore you recovered is the most important one…. There's only another 4 you need to collect…. Including one legendary ore that I was only able to find 1g of in all my travels" he quietly explains.

Jack furrows his brows and asks, "1g of legendary ore? How long did that take? How much Aeros did that make?" he asks.

"It only took me 150 years to find 1g but it was able to make over 100,000 tons of Aeros from that 1g" Maurice explains as if 150 years is nothing and that 1g creating 100,000 tons is also nothing. Jack can feel a headache at the big divide between what they think is normal. They talk for a few awhile long before Jack returns back to the village and looks at all the works going on.

There's a few more buildings, still primarily built out of wood but it truly does look like a town that has people living within it now. Jack walks through the town slowly, each villager stops to address him as "Lord" or some variation of it, Jack just waves at them to continue their work.

Jack reaches the end of the village where there are the crops planted, Jack has never done any farming work in his life so he doesn't know how beneficial the improved growth rate stat is but he is shocked upon seeing the rather large field of wheat, corn and a few local plants that he can't identify.

It's only a small field planted right now as the rest of the area is still afflicted with the poisonous substance within the ground, he feels that the farmers so far have done a great job with what little they have been provided. If they are able to raise animals then it will be even better, Jack thinks back to the demonic sheep, if they can somehow breed those sheep it'll possibly provide meat and raw materials.

Jack walks back to the village and thinks about what he should do, Albert appears walking down the road leading a small caravan of normal horses. Jack signals for him to stop, "Your Majesty, what can I do for you?" he asks.

"I'd like you to gather information on 'Harold's Merchant Group', we may need to crush them soon and I'd like to know the extent of their reach" Jack states his mind with a cold glint in his eyes.

"Your Majesty, this servant shall do as is requested, is there anything else?" Albert asks, Jack's eyes return to normal and he thinks some more.

"We need some domesticated animals; any will do but try to focus on sheep also…. Find out if anyone is selling slaves in the local area, any race or species will do" Jack finishes his thoughts.

"Your Majesty, I shall do all that you have requested" Albert gives Jack a salute, Jack just nods and waves at Albert to continue on, soon he disappears from sight and won't be back for a couple of days.

Jack now doesn't know what to do so he returns to the tent to quietly cultivate, the time passes by when Jack suddenly feels his body get slightly more powerful, the qi within his body is able to flow easier as though the passages that it follows within his body are wider and stronger. His body feels less injured and he feels itching for combat, Jack remembers that they were going to start farming ants.

Jack wants to leave the tent but Jessica stirs awake and wants to eat breakfast with him so he stays back where they eat a nice breakfast avoiding talking about last night, Jessica wants to go back to the mining town and look after the dog but they're not ready to do that just yet. Jack points out that she isn't looking after Fenrir as much, she just scrunches up her nose at the thought of the wolf saying that he can look after himself.

The breakfast ends without much more fanfare where Jack leaves the tent in search for Drakon, he wants to learn about what's going on with the ants. Upon finding Drakon he explains that a team of soldiers will be setting out shortly and he's welcome to join them if he rides Sleipner, it'll raise the morale of all the newer soldiers.

Jack hurries off to get ready upon hearing this, he doesn't wear the robes Jessica has prepared for him previously. Gathering up what he needs and leaving behind the White Dragon – Phoenix sword as the small snake has been working hard lately, meets up with the now gathered soldiers.

All of the soldiers are excited upon seeing that Jack will be joining them, they want to show off to their Lord in the hopes they'll be promoted in the future.

Drakon is going to lead the training mission and gets them fired up, "ARE YOU GOING TO LET THOSE ANTS GET NEAR YOU?!" he asks the crowd, "NO!" they reply.

"ARE YOU GOING TO CRUSH THEM LIKE YOU WILL CRUSH THE ENEMIES OF OUR HOLY WHITE DRAGON – PHOENIX EMPIRE?!" he yells, "YES CRUSH THEM!" they reply almost whipped into a fervour.

Jack laughs to himself at this scene, it's almost comical about how into it all the soldiers are getting. Each of them are punching each other in the shoulders, banging their weapons getting each other psyched up.

"MOVE OUT!" Drakon shouts as he sets out on the horse, none of the soldiers are on horses so it's just Jack and Drakon on horses as they slowly make their way to the outskirts of the ant area. The soil is very soft, almost sandy in the ant area but it is covered with a lot of plants, vines cover the ground in the place of grass creating a strange scene.

Jack dismounts Sleipner as the soldiers make their way into the sandy area slowly, working on their footing as they avoid the vines. Jack hopes that this vine is something special but upon inspecting it with the system is just displays 'Unknown'. He dismisses the information thinking that it probably can't display the information as the vine isn't the main plant.

The group make their way into the ant area and finally spot the first ant, Drakon rushes over to the ant and lures it to the group, it's just a small black army ant that Jack has seen before. One of the soldier's steps forward and lets out a single slice with his sword, the ant is instantly sliced through by the sword made of its brethren. The acidic blood spills onto the ground but the soldiers don't care as they turn over the carcass and retrieve the coins that the ant dropped.

Jack is curious as to why Drakon didn't have any coins drop when he killed the ant but ignores this thought, the group continue into the ant region with Drakon luring them and each of the soldiers taking a turn to kill an ant in a single strike for warm up, showing off to their Lord.

"Big group coming, Lord you take them" Drakon says as he rushes back to the group. Behind him, 10 or so ants can be seen, they're all black army ants with none of the giant ones. Jack readies his sword but changes his mind and releases a fireball, he gathers a lot of fire qi into his hand as the ball gets bigger and bigger.

He finally stops when the fireball is as big as a beach ball and launches it.

*BOOOOOOOM*

A mini mushroom cloud can be seen where he launched the fireball, all of the soldiers start to cheer but Jack is sweating, he didn't mean to create such a loud boom. High pitched squealing noises can be heard in the distance as a rumbling can be heard underground, Jack and Drakon both make a decision at the same time as they yell out in unison, "RUN!".

Jack gets onto Sleipner and starts to ride off but stops shortly after, he doesn't want to leave the soldiers behind as they will be the true backbone of his Empire in the future. It's their duty to die for their lord if needed but that doesn't mean their lord has to abandon them right away.

Jack pauses on Sleipner as the soldiers' rush by him, he is looking into the distance trying to see what is coming, a tree is knocked down as one of the metallic giant ants can be seen rushing towards him, followed by around 100 or so smaller ants of various colours.

Giving Sleipner a reassuring stroke Jack decides to try another fireball, he has enough qi to launch two or three more big fireballs. Jack gathers the qi in his hands, the ants are still some distance away, the fireball gathers into a size similar to the last fireball and he launches it as soon as it's ready.

*BOOOOOOM*

Another mini mushroom cloud can be seen, smoke and debris are knocked around and blocking his sight but Jack is unable to hear the high-pitched noise from earlier, the dust takes several moments to clear but big ant is still alive but it's badly hurt. The ants behind it overrun it and start to tear it apart eating the meat that they rip off.

Jack curses at the ants for stealing his kill as he leaves the area catching up to the soldiers quickly, Drakon just nods at Jack as though approving of what he did. No ants appear to be following them anymore so they leave this area and head to another part and continue to slowly bait the ants and kill them methodically.

Jack quickly gets bored of this because all of the ants are killed in one strike, telling Drakon that he's bored he decides to leave the group of soldiers but staying within contact range, Jack starts to just ride looking for the source of these vines, they appear to be heading deeper into the ant area but also many of them appear to come from underground.

Jack comes across a crevice, just a hole in the ground that goes down. He drops something down it in an attempt to hear how deep it is but after 20 seconds of listening he is unable to hear the end of it; Jack decides to leave this hole as he doesn't have any climbing gear when he hears a familiar voice in his head.

"User, Godly Qi has been detected 100m below this location."

Jack attempts to ask for more information but gets no further information from any of his questions, he is left to decide what to do. The last time he heard this voice tell him about detecting something like this it was very beneficial so he has no qualms about seeking out the item but he still has no climbing gear.

Looking at the ground littered with vines, Jack has an idea and gathers some vines together and pulls them, they appear to hold his body weight and making a decision, he proceeds to use the vines to climb down into the crevice.

Jack holds a fireball in his hand for light and peers around the crevice but it's just a pitch-black wall and pitch black beneath him, furrowing his brows he shoots a tiny fireball down below him but instead of seeing more of the hole.

Black shadows end up rushing towards Jack, high-pitched noises can be heard as fluttering noises pass by his ears, its moths being chased by a load of bats. Jack just holds onto the vine for his life as all the commotion is rushing about him, after a few moments the hole becomes quiet as all the bats chase the moths into the sky.

Jack lets out a sigh of relief but as though by cue, his hands start to lose grip on the vine and he starts to slip. Attempting to grab onto anything to stop this from happening Jack reaches out to the wall, as he touches the wall instead of remaining pitch black, the wall itself starts to emit light turning into geometric patterns that dance about.

The patterns stop and suddenly the wall turns into an opening and Jack is sucked in, dropping him onto a set of stone stairs leading down into some sort of area. Jack stands up and attempts to go back the way he came but discovers a barrier is blocking him, not being able to go backwards he can only go forward and walks down the stairs.