Chapter 70 - Preparing for the next event...

'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...'

The shadow left these words for Jack but he's left trying to decipher them as he manages the limp Amber, putting her back into bed next to Jessica who didn't even stir at all by the activity just now. Jack looks around the room, nothing has changed so he rushes out of the tent trying to glimpse the shadow.

'What Key? What Orb?'

Jack asks himself as he looks up at the moon, "Xueli, did you detect that shadow?"

'Of course but it wasn't strong nor hostile so you could have handled it'

Jack looks around the village before heading off to the first orb, the village heart while trying to work out what the key is.

It's just after midnight, so the village is rather quiet as the workshops keep pounding away as Jack walks around the sparsely populated streets. Jack walks through the barrier surrounding the village heart entering the room with the large black and white orb but nothing else is different.

Jack walks around the room before stopping at the statue of the Phoenix frowning at it, it looks different but he can't tell how as it mostly looks the same but there's just something about it that looks different.

"What would happen if the shadow had some weapon?" Jacks finger traces the inscription on the statue.

'I would have told you about it but you really have no idea about all the assassination techniques out there so it's better you don't know'

Jack looks around the room and can't see anything different, the barrier should have blocked anyone not permitted to be near the village heart and breaking through the barrier is usually noticeable so letting out a quiet sigh Jack exits the village heart building, unknown to him that the Phoenix Statue has a darkened inscription of a little tiny bird on one of its wings.

He jumps on top of a building and looks around at the village, a person within the shadows flickers on the peripheral of Jack's vision causing his heart to beat faster as he uses 'Bunny Dash' to chase after the shadow, the shadow leaves the village jumping rooftop to rooftop but as if noticing Jack following it, it pauses on top of the finished Star Goddess Temple building.

Jack is only a second behind but as he pauses on the Star Goddess Temple he's left disappointed because of who it is.

"Lord, sorry to disturb you this late" a black-furred bunny man lowers his head.

"It's ok Tahel, carry about your work as I'm just trying to follow some strange shadow thing that showed up"

"Shadow thing Sir?" Tahel looks deeply at Jack as if inspecting him.

"Perhaps a shadow element creature? I'm not sure but I don't believe it was malicious, it just told me something interesting before leaving"

"Lord, be careful as shadow is often associated with evil or demonic energies, the yin of light as opposed to your... yang energy"

"I shall keep your concern in mind, what are you doing this late?"

Jack is curious as to what Tahel is doing out this late, he previously wanted to act as Jack's personal bodyguard but after going to Sacred City he seems to have adopted a rather serious interest in acting like a spy, doing all the dirty work for Bane.

"Minister Bane wanted me to bring a preliminary report back, he and the bunny thieves have unlocked an entrance to an underground dungeon beneath the burnt down village and now I am going to transport the items from the goblin town to the secure storage here"

"Good job handling all of these tasks, I will be sending a squad to the merchant city later today so ensure that you're back before then"

"Yes Lord" Tahel salutes, Jack turns around to leave but he's stopped by Tahel who speaks up, "Lord please wait a moment"

"What is it?"

"Two things, if you're truly chasing shadow element then you should know it has a major flaw in it, it's always attracted to other sources of Shadow Element, if you introduce a source of pure shadow qi nearby, the higher purity will always attract the lower purity"

Jack nods his head as he listens, "I believe that your researchers and dwarves will help you wish this problem, talk with them" Tahel looks up at the moon before letting out an audible sigh.

"The second thing is, up there..." Tahel points up at the moon, Jack looks up at it again but it's still just a blood-red moon with strange patterns on it.

Jack raises his eyebrow, "W..." but Tahel interrupts him, "I feel an induction up there... an induction that shouldn't be possible given how many years have passed"

"What about up there?"

"My race always had a problem with people seeking out the females for their... capacity but that wasn't the only reason because the royal family always controlled the Imperial Treasure of the race, the 'Jade Palace'."

Jack nods along, he has heard about the Jade Palace before because it has been inserted into some tv shows that he has previously watched, a palace on the moon but it being filled with rabbits is something new.

"I... I was the protector of the royal family before the downfall... so these aren't new sensations for me... I am feeling the sensation from both the royal family and the jade palace up there..."

Jack looks deeply at Tahel who whispers, "I'm sorry "

"Is it only an induction or can you do anything about it?"

"Sorry Lord, it's only an induction and it might be incorrect so please don't let my rambling affect your work"

"No it's ok, thank you for telling me about your past as I've been learning much more about this world recently... I actually have an appointment with the moon but I don't know what will happen, is there anything you can recommend?"

"No.. no... well..." Tahel pauses before looking up at the moon, "If you come across Princess Phoebe please give her a purple flower"

Jack and Tahel talk for a few more moments before the dark-furred bunny man leaves to continue his tasks while Jack returns to town thinking about what they just discussed but isn't able to make much headway with the limited information, at the least he knows more about Tahel's past, the strange smiling bunny man...

The night continues as Jack returns to the village, the main street is filled with the banging from the workshops working non-stop on the equipment for the military machine that Jack is slowly building up, Jack quickly enters Maurice's workshop that is much quieter than the rest of the street.

Looking around the room Jack can see the dwarves standing not far from a table eating food while Glomor is drinking beer, closely watching Maurice solder intricate lines. They all nod at Jack who joins them in their quiet observations of Maurice who is concentrating on the pendant from the other day.

The group is quietly watching as Maurice traces a new line within the intricate designs after several tense moments the group quietly cheers as Maurice places down the spool of wire that he is holding while Jack is confused, they all greet him and explain that they're nearly done with the first design of the 'Lord's Pendant' as they're dubbing it.

Jack holds it and feels a strange induction between it but it's not between his body and the pendant but he can feel something in his forehead trying to draw the crystal closer, his eyes scan the delicate interiors of the pendant that looks completely different as it seems like the pendant has gone through a redesign.

The teleportation crystal is no longer the chief focus of the pendant, they linked another crystal to the teleportation crystal but Jack isn't able to identify the new type.

The dwarves explain that it's a 'Star Crystal', a crystal formed by the intense gravity and heat within a star. They're trying to integrate it and another crystal to see what will happen, they can't explain what will actually happen because the teleportation crystal shouldn't even exist within this universe so they're excited about what will happen when it's finished.

The hope is that it will allow individual teleportation to any city heart without drawing power of the user but they're not sure, perhaps it'll end up teleporting the user to some dimension in another universe?

"The pendant is important and all but..."

Jack slowly explains to them the situation that he previously found himself in, Maurice and the Dwarves are seriously listening between eating and drinking still. Jack finishes up while Maurice is silent but the dwarves speak out.

"Those damn shadow element people, always thinking they own the place"

"I'm glad the Imperial Court persecuted them..."

The various dwarves are speaking out of turn as they each talk about their own opinion about Shadow Element people, Glomor and Maurice are silent but after a few moments Glomor speaks up.

"Jewelry design number 2"

"OHHHH"

The dwarves make the same sound before being quiet, Jack looks to Maurice, but he's also visibly confused. The dwarves huddle together and start discussing things quietly while Jack walks over to Maurice to work out what's going on, but Glomor luckily joins the duo.

"Jewelry design number 2 is a basic design that all dwarves learn when forging simple accessories, it comes back to the Phoenix Empire when..."

Glomor starts to tell the history behind the design and the reason that it's used; it turns out that there was something called the 'Imperial Court' that handled many matters including capturing dangerous people. Shadow Sect was a problem until 'Imperial Court' started using a formation design that used shadow crystals to capture people that used shadow qi.

This design was simple and ended up in the hands of the dwarves after many generations because it was so simple, the first pattern that many apprentices within the dwarven cities create on accessories is this formation from the 'Imperial Court' thus nearly all dwarves are aware of the pattern and how to use it.

Jack, Maurice and Glomor speak for a few more moments as the other dwarves decide upon what they will do. Jack is curious about the progression with the Demonic Sheep as Maurice is handling the research regarding them but unfortunately he has neglected them while the pendant needs to be processed.

They still can't work out why the demonic sheep are leaving random items near the orb nor can they work out where the extra demonic sheep are coming from.

The conversation progresses to the dwarven technology which Maurice is strangely excited about as their armour is like his 'Aeros' but not as good, like a cheaper derivative product but it's able to be upgraded quite easily to the advanced version or something, Jack can't pay attention to the intricate talk of metal values.

The dwarves finish talking and address Jack, they will be able to create a small ring using one of the many shadow element crystals that are located within storage. They enter the storage room with Jack following closely behind while he looks at the various materials piled up again but this time he strangely feels motivated to try something out.

Jack walks around the storage room and places the various minerals and elemental items that are just sitting around within his strange storage area that is the lump of dirt. The dwarves take a single crystal while Jack takes almost half of each pile just to see what will be absorbed and what won't be, so far the 'Guardians' and the sealed crystal haven't been absorbed while nearly everything else has been.

"Lord it won't take too long to fashion this item into a ring that will capture shadow element entities up to stage 5 cultivation but beyond that, you'll need to find higher quality shadow element crystals" Glomor speaks after checking the crystal.

"Does this thing work for other elements?"

"Yes and no, it will work but not like it does for Shadow and Light elements as they're special, people that use those elements generally only have those elements in their body"

Jack stands around watching for a while but the dwarves get to work on the ring leaving him with nothing to do but stand around and watch, it wont be long until daylight so Jack heads back to the tent where Amber, Jessica and Mai are sleeping on the bed.

Not feeling sleepy, Jack opts to cultivate again and work on his ideas for the village while trying to study the armoured figure or 'Guardian' that is broken into parts but he's unable to make much sense of it given that it's made of mostly crystals so ends up mostly just thinking about the future and what needs to happen.

He needs to get 100,000 soldiers of at least stage 3 cultivation within a few months...

It sounds simple to say yet it's such a far away task as it has taken a lot of effort to get the total number of villagers now, let alone have all of them act as soldiers...

Jack cannot solve the problem of soldiers immediately but it's not like everything needs to be resolved with outright battles, Jack thinks back to his world, movies and books will often draw inspiration upon real-life examples so he can use some of those ideas such as internal division, sabotage, espionage and classic redirection to take down large entities but it really depends on the power a City Lord has and how interconnected they are with each other.

There's also the fact that it's not even certain they'll be hostile with him.

The White Flower Church and Lisa were incredibly respectful when they assumed he was part of a larger organization, his cultivation is weak compared to Lisa but because of that backing she was respectful and willing to accommodate Jack. Perhaps he needs to develop another identity to use in public?

Jack is cultivating while thinking about these things as the dawn approaches.

Mai wakes up, she does the usual exchange of blood from Jack while dropping her blood into the tub before running off, Jack uses the quicker cultivation method causing the little bird and Jessica to stir in the bed but she doesn't wake up while the little bird messes around in the room, Jack's body fills with energy and emerges from the tub filled with various dead herbs.

The two girls are still on the bed fast asleep so Jack quietly leaves them to continue sleeping while heading off to the workshop to see if the ring is finished yet. The village streets are filling with noise as people wake up, most of them are queueing up to gather food for the day while some of them wait by the City Hall building for their daily tasks.

Jack leaves them alone and enters the workshop, half of the dwarves are sleeping while Maurice and Glomor are back working on the pendant, it has only been a few hours since he was last here. One of the dwarves steps forward holding a small ring which Jack picks up and inspects:

[Imperial Court Ring - Shadow] Grade: Legendary, Stats: Perception +10% Shadow Resistance +20%, Description: A ring with the powers of the Imperial Court, a ring able to restrain and subdue anything that uses the Shadow Element.

Jack puts the simple ring on, it looks like a simple lump of metal going over his finger with a gemstone inlaid on the top, rather cheap looking actually but he feels excited because the system provided information about the ring.

"Are you able to create more of these rings?"

"Yes Lord, we have enough resources to create another 5 rings"

Jack asks them to create 5 more rings while he heads off to the city hall building, Hilda is handling the tasks needed for the day but she looks exhausted. Jack won't patronize her by telling her to rest but reminding her she's likely to make mistakes by getting exhausted.

Tahel and a few of the rabbit-humans enter, Jack needs to send them to the merchant city today along with Albert but tells them to wait until the dwarves finish creating the rings, Jack spends the rest of the morning helping around the village as the village gets on with everything and he inspects the village and the other smaller villages close by designed for the other species.

The kobolds have made part of their underground village again; the goblins have made up a rather nice looking grass village while the bunnies have made a large normal-looking village, Jack watches the bunny people closely and still can't work out why they're so sought after because they just seem like normal people but apart from Tahel, no special residents have spawned from them so perhaps that's why.

No king rats have spawned and all the animals are managing themselves so Jack returns to the village where the dwarves have finished the ring so Jack sends Albert along with Tahel to the merchant city to prepare for the auction coming up in a few days, it's Friday and the auction will happen Sunday night according to all the posters with the Easter Event officially finishing on Monday morning.

It's important to keep all the money raised within the merchant city, within the merchant city as it has a stupidly high exit tax rate of above 20%. The morning duties are fulfilled while Jack and Drakon are both standing by the orb outside the village, the demonic orb is the only orb left that Jack hasn't inspected.

Jack and Drakon are training with each other in basic sword skills both of them are working on their foot work and are about equal, time passes by and it reaches midday nearly the time for the 'suns peak' when Jack can feel a tug on the newly created ring on his finger...