Chapter 69 – Future Plans, Killing Ants, Shadowed Figure.

Jack looks around before speaking to Drakon, many goblins are standing around talking to the various soldiers, causing the scene to look rather harmonious but there's a subtle tension between the two groups. There has been no outright conflict between the two groups previously, but that doesn't mean things will be good without effort.

"The prophet told many helpful things and gave us some guidance for the future, how goes your work out here?"

"The goblin command structure is just as DeeYo told us, it won't take much to integrate them"

"Good," Jack turns from Drakon and looks toward Jax who is coldly looking over all the human soldiers, "Jax you are now one of my generals and have submitted to me, Drakon or General Laoshe here is my right-hand man regarding most military matters so you will most likely be dealing with him most of the time"

Jax and Drakon both look at each other coldly before Jax reluctantly lowers his head in a slight bow, "Great… General"

"Goblin General Jax" Drakon responds by also lowering his head, the scene is awkward so Jack speaks up before this goes on for much longer.

"Jax I will return tomorrow, Drakon will has organised some soldiers to help with integration and collect the items left by the Prophet, will we have any more issues like with the goblin riders or the barrier?"

"No…" the dark-skinned goblin replies through grit teeth.

Jack shakes his head while Drakon lightly sighs, "Let's go inspect the town heart before we leave today"

The three of them walk in silence toward the town centre where a stone building holds a large dark green orb about the size of a motorcycle. Jax looks at the orb in reverence while Drakon has no reaction, Jack walks up to the orb pressing his hand down on it where a familiar prompt comes up.

'SYSTEM NOTIFICATION - Would you like to capture, relocate or destroy 'United Goblin Town' village heart?'

Jack thinks for a moment before selecting capture, the orb emits a white light that surrounds Jack briefly. The goblin town has a few thousand goblins, while the town itself is still secure after the demonic invasion negating any reason to move it yet, it's located much closer than the many human villages around.

Jack and Drakon discuss a few more plans with Jax who barely responds, they will come back tomorrow to inspect the thing that gives out the Blood Essence orbs while also learning about how the goblin town avoided the demonic creatures so far. The only thing that Jack has worked out is they bury the infected bodies somewhere.

The trio returns to the soldiers who are mingling with the goblins successfully and decide to move out, leaving a group to stay behind and enact the plans previously decided upon, Jack and Drakon leave the goblin town leaving Jax to handle everything until tomorrow.

There's not actually much of a goblin military left behind, only about 400 goblins are left with any military profession within the town so if they wanted the town itself can be easily brought down after breaching the walls. Jack motions for Drakon to follow behind him closely as the soldiers file out and the group makes their way over to the ant area.

"Lord is there something that needs to be handled immediately?"

"No it's not that, the Prophet told me many things that I do not understand but I'll give you the basic rundown before he disappeared"

Jack spends several minutes quietly discussing with Drakon what the prophet said, about going south west then east and finally north, the thing about the creature below and how the world is likely to shift soon and how the barriers will be down in 2 years.

Drakon's face has a serious expression on as he earnestly listens to Jack speak, pausing for some time after Jack stops speaking. The group of soldiers come across a couple of coloured ants that are quickly killed, but Jack and Drakon sit in silence watching them.

"Did he specify anything beyond 'soon'?" Drakon asks after a few moments.

"No. I don't even know if he meant the Eastern part of this Central Continent or somewhere on the Eastern Continent"

Drakon pauses for a few more moments before sighing, "We really have little to go on but the first thing is to head South West as it sounds as though that event might lead into the others. I wonder why it's of vital importance though"

"I wonder too but if it's off the coast then it'll be under the water, do you know anything about the water areas of this world?"

"No, Lord" Drakon looks out at the soldiers who have killed the ants but have come across another lot, collecting the body and money dropped by the ant. The soldiers get involved more with the ants forcing Drakon to lead the squads and break away from Jack which suits him fine, he would like some time to speak with Xueli and collect some ants personally.

Jack rides Sleipner some distance away from the soldiers and speaks out, "Xueli what do you think about everything?"

The young man a top the gigantic horse launches a few fireballs toward black ants hoping to draw out some coloured ones, 'He was a useless prophet, stupid shamanistic divination practises are worthless and are only useful in the backwaters but I have no fault with what he said'

Jack collects the ants bodies taking out the damaged spear and waiting on the spot for more ants to come, from the distance sounds of soldiers engaging ants fill the environment while Jack waits in a clearing. The ant bodies creating a pile on top of the piece of dirt in the black space.

"What about that creature below? What is Nightfa…? What about the tribe of time? The sacred mountain key weapon thing?"

Ants rush through the brush toward Jack, a large yellow ant and 4 red ants. Jack uses his spear gently and engages the ants with minor effort, storing them away while waiting for the next lot.

'I don't know about the creature below or 'Nightfa…' but the tribe of time is more important than almost anything. Countless kingdoms and empires have risen and fallen on the rumours of having access to the tribe of time ruins'

"Why? Aren't they just ruins? Does being able to advance a few years mean much when people live thousands of years?"

'It's not just a few years, and it's being able to cross all those years instantly with no distractions, even the strongest people will fight over the chance to use a time pyramid, I heard the strongest time pyramid can cross over 10,000 years in only 10 days'

"10,000 years in only 10 days? That's hard to imagine… He only said that it's ruins though, does that mean there will be a time pyramid there?"

'I don't know and It doesn't matter if it's only of the weakest time pyramids that can cross 50 years, you need to gain strength and that's one of the best ways to do it'

Xueli slowly speaks to Jack all that she knows about the time pyramids which isn't much more than what she has already spoken while Jack mindlessly engages the ants that show up while storing them away creating a large pile on the piece of dirt; a yellow ant, several red and blue ants.

Easily killing the ants and storing them away his attention is drawn by a buzzing sound coming from the air, a small green ant is flying quickly through the air compared to the larger metallic flying soldier ants this one is much quicker and causing a problem for some soldiers that can't hit it.

A soldier holds up his shield to hold back the small green flying ant but it avoids him and lunges at the swordsman beside the shield bearer, an advanced spearman is ready to stab at the ant as it avoids the slash from the swordsman but the ant easily dodges all of them and leaving a large gash across the chest of another swordsman before going back into the air.

The ant easily dodges a few shots from an archer and goes in for another round of attacks, the shield bearer prepares to intercept the next attack but Jack using 'Bunny Dash' appears before the shield holding out his spear, the flying ant impales itself on the spearhead while the soldiers relax slightly.

"Thank you Lord" a few of them shout, Jack nods at them before disappearing into the distance again.

"What about the thing that's like a key for the divine beasts? What is that about?"

'I don't know because Divine Beasts were always protected within the Holy White Dragon Empire but isn't that important to your cultivation technique?'

"Yes, do you think it's related to that?" Jack asks after getting a random idea about it.

'There's a chance because special cultivation arts often have a weapon tied into them but really I don't know and that's a guess'

Jack pauses and watches the surroundings while thinking about this line, a large ant appears through the brush, a large metallic ant. The large ant brandish its pincers menacingly as it rushes towards Jack who is standing there watching the ant with no reaction, he pushes his qi into the damaged spear causing it to glow; the spearhead vibrates as the ant enters the 3 step range.

'First Motion'

The spearhead rips through the air before a terrible scraping sound is heard as the spearhead passes through the metallic exoskeleton of the ant, the spearhead buries into the flesh after which a small explosion occurs within the ant's head making it slump over, Jack quickly stores it and gathers the few silver coins that were dropped by the dead ant.

"I don't know about that but this spear won't last much longer" Jack inspects the spear that has a few more cracks within the shaft, it's still perfectly useable but something needs to happen with it.

'Ask the Dwarves to look at it'

The day progresses as it becomes mid afternoon, Jack and Xueli have been talking for most of the day as they clear up some questions he had regarding what 'The Prophet' said, she doesn't know much but more than Jack so while nothing is clear, it's better than nothing.

The first event is off the coast to the south-west, it's unknown what exactly it is but that's the first event they need to attend while attempting to build up their own forces as best as possible. Region travel is impossible for everyone within this world, including people in the saint realm, so that's going to be a problem to face as region travel is done via either unifying a region or it's allowed by the world.

System City Lords apparently can allow region travel, but that's only for a single region so even if Jack could find one to let him travel it won't answer his problem of getting to the south-west coastline. It will be even more impossible to create an army large enough to fight against system cities and enable region travel, a single system city has a standing army of over 200,000 soldiers with many regions having multiple system cities.

The region that Jack is within has 4 System Cities, so if he were to unify this region, he'd most likely have to face off against 800,000 soldiers from the System Cities that have Stage 2-3 cultivation.

Jack regroups with Drakon who is leading a group in training while also collecting the ants and coins that drop, money is important for the auction coming up and perhaps that will have an item or two that can break the barrier? There's even the third motion of 'Heavens Piercing Thrust' perhaps that'll be able to break through the barrier?

Being left with these questions, Jack spends the afternoon talking to Drakon and Xueli while helping the soldiers kill ants when it hits late afternoon and time to change the squads around Jack escorts the first lot of soldiers back to the training base in the village, they'll use today to train on the ants while collecting money but that doesn't concern Jack because:

1, he isn't a soldier.

2, he works much better away from the group of soldiers.

Jack's movement set is high speed and quick maneuvering while the soldiers act more like tanks taking the hits and relying on someone else to come in for the kill.

Each person within a squad of soldiers has a role while Jack just works on high speed, instant kill principles that works great by himself and as a support to other units as with the green flying ants.

The town is still as lively as ever as he escorts the soldiers back the short distance, many of the older residents are pitching in to help where they can while the younger residents are just messing around along the streets but mostly out of the way bringing a smile to Jacks face.

The soldiers go back to the training grounds and do their thing while Jack heads to the city hall building to speak with Hilda, there're many things he needs to speak to her about as she's acting as steward of the whole village that is rapidly expanding.

Jack enters the city hall building where he's greeted with the sight of several tables filled with paperwork while Hilda and Amber run back and forth, people are entering and leaving the building all the time giving everything a chaotic feeling but Hilda still stops when her eyes spot Jack to give him a quick greeting while Amber rushes over to tend to Jack in whatever way she can.

Jack briefly summarises the events with 'the Prophet', Hilda writes it all down while Amber listens to Jack tell the story back with full attention, responding emotionally exaggeratedly at times. As soon as Jack finishes, Hilda is interrupted by someone walking in needing her help with something leaving Jack alone with Amber but Jack just leaves her with the words, "Prepare for the feast tonight with the dwarves and help Hilda" before leaving the busy city hall building.

Jack walks around the village taking in the sights before walking back to his tent empty of everyone, Jessica and Mai are out doing whatever leaving him alone to speak with Xueli. Jack is curious as to the ancient Holy White Dragon Empire that she came from and how that was setup and run, but her memories of the Empire aren't there but it doesn't matter, Jack wanted to design something up himself for the most part.

Ideally he should be at the top but symbolically because unless he becomes some god able to exist everywhere or a machine. He has to pass on responsibilities to other people, right now it's run by Hilda but the sheer number of people over the last week has increased her workload massively. She has taken it in stride, yet you can see her speed decreasing as the complexity does.

One of the first things shall be to create some institution to find suitable people for leadership positions, Jack will hand most of it off to Hilda regardless but there should already be some standout people amongst everyone that has arrived. A rough plan takes shape which will take time to form but Jack really needs to research more as his schooling only covered the basics of Kingdoms and Empires.

It slowly becomes evening while the smell of food fills the village causing Jack's stomach to grumble, he leaves the tent in search of the smell that leads him to the city hall building that has been setup for a grand feast yet not everyone is there. The sun sets as more time passes, the city hall building is filled with everyone important in the city except for Tyson and Mai who are out doing whatever.

Jack is having a grand time unwinding while getting drunk off beer, Drakon and the dwarves are having drinking competitions while Hilda is monitoring them. Jessica and Amber are both tending to Jack as the night passes by into midnight with little happening, allowing all the participants of the feast to unwind and not discuss anything important.

The feast dies down as all the participants head back to their domiciles, Jack is walking back to his tent hand in hand with both Jessica and Amber who have both drunk too much yet unknown to all these people at other places around the world, within the shimmering moonlight various doors appear before 11 people who each are holding a special key, the Jade Palace key they got from the beggar.

The doorway opens up yet within Dragon - Phoenix Village, the blood-red moon light shimmers but the red orb on the outskirts of town shakes as it attempts to breakthrough the barrier surrounding it, a miniscule hole develops in the barrier formation that is instantly sealed but it gives enough time for a black blob to escape through the gap.

The blob changes shape into a shadowy figure that creeps into the village through the gap.

One solitary demonic sheep watches the shadowy figure that creeps into the village, the first one as its blank eyes follow the figure that somehow flickers between where the moon leaves a shadow.

Jack is restoring the qi within his body while Jessica and Amber are passed out on the bed, both for the same reason drinking far too much.

The shadowy figure is unseen as it creeps through the village, almost teleporting between wherever the moon leaves its shadow while it makes its way into the white tent. Jack isn't able to notice the shadow but Amber suddenly sits up, Jack can notice this as she makes unsteady footsteps towards him while his back is facing her.

Jack is curious to see what she's up to because she has been timid all night, she stops behind Jack and grabs his shoulder but her grip is strong as she leans down to Jacks ear and whispers in a strangely quick rhythm, "Do you wish to peek at one of the secrets? Wait for sun's peak, the key shall have what you seek, before the orb..."

Jack attempts to turn his head to see who's speaking his he can feel some lips contact his cheek not allowing him to turn his head, using his divine sense letting him get a look at the backside of a person wearing tight fitting clothing but illusory and shadowy as it flickers outside the tent in two movements. Amber's head falls down forcing Jack to catch her, she's passed out but Jack is left wondering about what that shadow was about and what it said...