Depthless Hunger

When Tusquo took them seriously and began assembling a brigade of Irunians, at first Kai thought he was completely unprepared. He was good at hunting monsters and fighting, not actually training anyone. And yet... that might be his younger self speaking.

The truth was that he'd actually spent a lot of time training people in Krysal, taking the mine workers from slaves to a force that could fight crystalliers. True, they'd brought their enhanced Physique to the table, but the Irunians weren't weak either. He had to believe that he could make a difference here or all his ideals about strengthening the Frontier nations were just nonsense.

Eventually they had a group of one hundred gathered outside Brasyan. He hoped he wasn't supposed to give a speech, but it seemed like Tusquo had that covered talking to everyone individually. When he was done, he walked up beside Kai and spoke in a lower voice.

"This is who we have. Not our best, but the best we can spare. If you can make this group more capable of defending Irun, the nation will owe you a great debt."

Kai nodded and looked over the group carefully. They all looked like similarly-uniformed Irunian men and women, and their spirits weren't so different either.

Name: ???

Total Power: 52

Physique Level: F-4 (38)

Soul Level: 2 (4)

Path of Steel: Iron 2 (10)

>

The majority had around 50 Power, primarily stemming from Physique. A few were clearly more experienced, but that usually just meant a slightly higher Soul Level and a better Path of Steel, nothing that made them elites.

And it wasn't really their fault. The group was stronger on the fundamentals than many hunters or even some crystalliers, but they were held back by the central power of Irun. Obviously Kai couldn't tell them that, but he had to find a way to improve their chances.

His plan had been to launch into a training schedule, but Raghi and Lofgan walked up to stand beside him, which combined with Tusquo made things far too formal. Before he could get out of it, Raghi elbowed him in the side.

"You need to say something," he whispered. "These people don't know who you are. They need to believe you can actually help."

"Ah... well..." Kai took a breath and looked out over the Irunians, trying not to choke. Tusquo nodded to him, as if he'd definitely been expected to prepare a speech. Well, they were here for training, and that was something he actually knew, so...

"When I finished my basic training I had less than half your strength," Kai told the group. "I had no path forward, and it felt like I couldn't make any progress with Physique. That was when Tusquo Agyama and some of your countrymen shared Irunian exercises with me. I've been traveling since then, but I'm back to return the favor."

The Irunians didn't cheer, but they did look encouraged. Tusquo gave him another nod and stepped away to deal with other parts of the plan.

"We'll be training alongside you," Kai continued. "These are Raghi and Lofgan Tonjin. They're both training with the Frontier elites, but that doesn't mean we can slack on Physique exercises. I'll be expecting the absolute best from you, understand?"

"Sir!" The Irunians answered as one and Kai almost stepped back in surprise, then instead he smiled. Maybe this could work.

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..

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Omilaena had no patience for dealing with all of the mercenary armor, so she was glad that the Irunians picked up the technique quickly. They might not have Artisan abilities, but they were quite adept with metals. She stood at the back of the room, tapping a syringe against her thigh as she considered alternate paths for development.

Before she came to a conclusion, Tusquo entered the smithy and came to stand beside her. "Everything working?"

"Oh, sure." Omilaena picked up the sample breastplate of dark gray steel and handed it to him. "Looks all Irunian now, doesn't it? This will give a real boost to whoever wears it."

"That's better than nothing, but a few dozen pieces of armor can't transform our forces."

"A few dozen? That's assuming we don't have to purge more of the mercenaries." She grinned at him despite his Irunian stare in response. "There's no need for this to be all or nothing. If we strengthen your forces, the need for Birtaegalese mercenaries will decrease and you can take action against the worst of them. The result will be a gradual transition."

"I respect the logic, but it isn't enough." Tusquo folded his arms as he stared over the workers. "We've always been fundamentally limited by the powers we inherited. How can we move forward without abandoning them?"

"I had an idea for that too. Let me see you generate that steel."

He frowned, but obeyed without further instructions. When he raised his palm, liquid steel began to slowly form within it. Hmm, that wasn't quite true, it was more like it seeped from his pores before collecting into a visible sphere. Tusquo began to move and shape the steel, but Omilaena didn't particularly care about that part.

"So you excrete the metal?" She took the sphere from him and used her goggles to look closer. "Hmm, do you have a finite amount?"

"No, once the steel joins our souls, we create it," Tusquo told her.

"How? I don't mean the techniques, I mean the details. You can't just create something from nothing, there must be some cost."

"Yes, of course. It's difficult to create steel in an environment with weak mana, for example. It also tends to be exhausting, and you have to eat more if y-"

"Aha!" Omilaena palmed the sphere and instead grabbed his arm. "I had a feeling it was going to be something like that. I need to take a sample from you - hold your arm steady."

The Irunian man did so reluctantly and didn't flinch when she extracted a syringe full of his blood. Hopefully this would work... Omilaena knew she was arrogant, but she was realistic enough to realize she couldn't transform everything with just what she knew. Unless she could discover a fundamental principle that she could exploit, she might not be able to accomplish anything.

She raised the blood to eye level and compared it to the sphere of metal. Within seconds, she began to chuckle and all the Irunian workers looked at her nervously.

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..

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Zae Zin Nim had done more than enough training others in Krysal, so she was glad to join one of the other teams. She and Inafay had already corresponded with Tusquo to gather information about all the mercenaries in Irun. Many were professional enough, but others should be targeted. In order to give the government's pronouncement real bite, they had to enforce their laws.

"Alright, I'm ready," Inafay said as she stepped out of her room. "The elites took the Windborn ship back, so we-"

"We will be using the Krysali ship," Zae Zin Nim insisted. "I have no intention of tramping all across this country."

"I guess I won't complain, but admit I get a bit impatient. That ship is slower than I am."

"What are you going to do, carry me?"

Inafay raised her eyebrows. "I could, but somehow I don't think you'd find that dignified enough."

"We will use the Krysali ship. That way we can talk and cultivate while we travel." Zae Zin Nim led them further away from the building and then pulled the ship from her spatial bracelet.

"Now that I think about it, don't cultivators fly?"

"Flying vehicles are common on Cloudspire, but flying without assistance is only possible when your qi advances enough. You see, this is something we couldn't discuss if we were shooting through the air with wind blowing all around us."

Inafay laughed as she vaulted into the ship. "Fine, fine. Let's just go."

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..

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As the weeks passed, Kai worked the brigade as hard as he dared. Obviously it would take a long time to truly transform the Irunian soldiers, but the start made him feel optimistic. They might be weak in the sense of overall Power, but they were highly disciplined, basically ideal students. In between exercises they often spoke to one another, providing suggestions and support.

He was still reminded of the gulfs between people. Even many soldiers who worked hard would never reach E-rank Physique, not on Deadwaste. But at their level of combat, scaling the F-ranks could still be the difference between being overwhelmed or winning, dying of an injury or surviving. With only 50 Power, each increment really mattered to them.

It was also a perfect environment for him to focus on his own Physique training, which could serve as an example without slowing him down. He'd been neglecting the plant the elves had given him, but now he drew heavily on the mana and chakra blend in the root. His Physique, which had stagnated on Deadwaste, began to advance again.

Even more importantly, the flowing chakra powered the Savage Heart as he continued to train it. To avoid scaring the Irunians, he focused on more subtle transformations such as increasing his muscle mass. Drawing on Direboar's Strength directly proved to be harder than he expected.

Instead of creating a flickering body part, using the Savage Heart this way made his body seem to swell with chakra. It worked so well that he was certain the Savage Creed followers would have taught him a similar exercise if he'd stayed on Rosemount. Once he mastered the sense for it, he was sure that his other transformations would also prove more stable.

Would any of it be enough? The training might help these soldiers survive the next incursion, but nothing could stop the beings he'd seen before. Kai trained facing the Frontier, his gaze fixed on the sky over the abyss.

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