Dwarf Leader - I am Grant leader of the Dwarf Faction.Yu - I am Yu Leader of the Haven Faction, I"ve come today to request a.s.sistance from the Dwarf Faction.
Grant-? What kind of a.s.sistance could my faction provide you? While we may be a recluse faction we do have suitable information network to know that you are a powerful man with a mysterious background.
Yu - [So they know about us huh?]
Yu - I read past reports that mentioning how Dwarves were fast and skilled builders. What I"m here to request is to hire some builders to help my faction with some reconstruction.
Grant - I hear your request, but what I wish to know is why you need builders?
Yu - ...Recently there have been some changes within our faction"s territory and due to certain complications, we need to rebuild most of our buildings.
I didn"t want to tell them this information but I needed their help so I could only comply this time and speak honestly. Besides if spread this information to the public I don"t mind wiping the Dwarf faction off the face of the planet since they"d become my enemy then. I don"t want people knowing about Haven current status unless I want them to know, anyone who goes against this will be silenced.
However, I don"t think that Grant would reveal anything that was mentioned in this meeting of ours. When we talked rather than probing intent I honestly felt curiosity in his voice, in addition to this I used one of my innate skill [World"s Eye]. This was sort of a cheat-like skill that let me look at the flow of magic energy while also showing me the emotional state of a target.
The only downside of this was that it required a lot of mana to use so I try not to use it too often. When I looked at Grant with this skill the emotions he showed were that of vigilance and curiosity.
Grant - ... It is getting cold out here why don"t we go inside and talk more in detail.
Yu - Lead the way.
----
If I were to describe the interior of the Dwarf Faction compound it would be western style medieval theme with a mixture of modern-day architecture. The building in the area was designed like the buildings of the past, but different from those buildings I saw something different from a lantern lighting the area.
It looked like a lightbulb but I could feel magic energy from the lights. If my guess was right it had to be a magic item but these lights were different from singular light producing magic items. These magic items were connected through a giant rune formation like an electrical grid and were powered by mana.
In the past I tried to replicate something like this but because I was so busy with other things I"ve had to put that project on hold. Now that I"m seeing it up close my intuition of as a rune maker is telling me to study them in detail. In the past, this may not have caught my attention but with the sudden addition of my blacksmith, rune maker, and medicine refiner sub-jobs small details like this have caught my attention more often.
Yu - [I"ll just ask if I can look at their formation techniques if the chance pops up.]
Deactivation [World"s Eye] I continued to follow grant while also looking at the Dwarf Faction"s inhabitants. Besides the few dwarves we saw at the entrance once we entered the compound hundreds of dwarves entered our sights.
Even though I knew that I now lived in a world where this was normal, what I saw in front of me still made me pause for a moment wondering if this was real. Dwarves were everywhere living their everyday life in peace, or what I thought was peace.
On the surface, I could see many dwarves smiling while children play in a nearby park, but if I look in more detail I can see some older dwarves showing expressions full of dissatisfaction. This made me wonder why they had these expressions but, right now I couldn"t think about that too much because this isn"t my faction.
No matter how much one wants to help people they must first help themselves and those around them before extending their reach towards others. Right now I have to think about the reconstruction of Haven and I don"t really have the time nor manpower to do anything to help the Dwarf Faction.
----
Grant lead our group from the front entrance towards the center of the compound, the walk took about 10 minutes and during our walk, I continued to view the surroundings with the a.s.sistance of my domain. Towards the dwarves, I was just simply looking at the surroundings, but only I knew that I was secretly mapping out the compounds infrastructure.
Or at least the parts my domain could reach, rather than being spread out in one simple plain like the Yokai Faction, the Dwarf Faction was structured in floors like a dungeon. Because of this, I could only map around 3 floors but I knew there was more I wasn"t seeing.
Before long a castle-style building enters our view, the guards look at Grant leading us and don"t even question us or anything. After we pa.s.s the front gate I suddenly felt a burst of earth energy enters the atmosphere.
This wasn"t due to the usage of magic or anything but rather the earth energy was in the air naturally. It was like the areas in Haven where the earth vein"s energy was abundant but only this source was vastly incomparable with that of the earth energy found in Haven. Turning my sights towards the gate I saw a barrier formation keeping the earth energy encased within the castle"s perimeter. If it wasn"t for the fact that I was looking for any abnormalities I might not have even noticed this. It was so well hidden that it made me have to concede victory towards its creator.
Yu - [*sigh* looks like there is still many things in this world that I need to learn.]
While I may be a king I was also someone who put a lot of hard work into my crafts so when I see someone whose skills surpa.s.s mine I can"t help myself from wondering how they did what they did. It was that moment when I realized that while the Dwarf Faction may have been in decline they had a lot of valuable knowledge that I both need and want.
*Ding* [Host has received the Quest [Dwarf Annexation]]
[Task 1 - Meet the guardian spirit of the Dwarf Faction and convince it to join Haven along with the Dwarf Faction
Rewards:
1) 1x Gnomes Blessing
2) Ma.s.sive improvement in Haven"s Technological departments
3) 1x Gacha Ticket]
Yu - [...-_-... *sigh* I call already tell there is going to be a lot of paperwork coming my way in the future.]
The fact that I"m going to try and annex the Dwarf Faction has already been implanted in my list of things to do, but with this task also comes a lot of paperwork. Something I don"t want but will have to endure for now.
While I was clenching my fists in my mind, Grant stopped before a giant wooden door and knocked three times.
??? - ...Enter
Grant - Follow me.
Grant opened the door and inside the giant room was a big tree with a golden pond surrounding its perimeter. Besides that there was nothing else inside the room, however, I found this strange shouldn"t there be someone else in here?
Following Grant, we all approached the tree and the closer we got to thicker the earth energy was. Eventually, I stopped looking at the tree and looked at the gold pond. Before I thought it was just for decoration but now that I got a closer look I knew exactly what it was.
Yu - [Earth Essense]
The physical yet ethereal manifestation of earth energy. Mages who study in earth magic usually convert their mana into earth energy when they try to use magic but earth essence is a type of energy that is stored in ones astral body as a sort of back up energy source. Unlike earth energy which is found in the air and has no shape earth essence can be released into the world in a physical or liquified form, but when it is inside the astral body it is in an ethereal state.
I happen to have stored multiple types of elemental essences in my astral body, but I know for certain that it isn"t an easy thing to do. Elemental essence can either be formed naturally or through continuous magic breakthroughs. The earth essence I"m seeing right now has to be naturally formed since on the way here I felt no strong earth mages in the area.
*Crack**Crack**Crack*
The sudden sound of wood being broken cut off my train of thought and I looked at the tree once more to see a part of it moving. Within seconds the tree split open like a flower blossoming and from within open area stood a thin figure. It was covered in bark, vines, and moss.
Yu - ...Grant why have you brought us here?
Grant - Any deals the Dwarf Faction has ever had have all been under the supervision of our guardian spirit the Gnome.
Yu - ...So that"s the earth element spirit Gnome.
Yu - [That"s not a Gnome!! That"s Groot!!!!]