Chapter 749: Preparation Before Expansion
The next morning, Vicente met the 91 Sovereigns of Dresbert at the headquarters of the Sentinels of the Order.",
By this time, all the members of the former Dresbert Magicians' Society were aware of the changes brought about by Vicente and his companions, as well as the new name of their group.
At this meeting, the 91 local leaders just listened to Vicente speak, informing them of what was going to happen over the next few days. Between today and tomorrow, they were to prepare groups containing Sovereigns and Mages, who would take up positions around the territory Vicente was going to conquer.
Today and tomorrow, he would stay in Dresbert to build armor, firearms and other artifacts to help the sentinels of the city, but after that, he would set out to conquer at least an area up to 30 kilometers away from the city limits.
He had seen how weak the locals were and much of the population was suffering from the terror of having monsters so close to the city. He wanted both to give the locals a breath of relief and to regain an area that was necessary to maintain the local food demand.
Dresbert was an agricultural city, so it would have to use this characteristic to its advantage to negotiate with other cities that had unique characteristics. If there was no food reserve left, it would have nothing to offer other places!
Even if the continent was amid a crisis, no one acted simply out of pity. Certainly, many magicians wanted to help maintain their community as they knew it, but they would certainly prefer and be more sincere in following agreements that had their advantages.
This was the case for Vicente, who could get people for the Cataclysm Order and prevent the arrival of many monsters in the south of the continent, but also for Dresbert's future partners.
To maintain an area of up to 30 kilometers in radius, he would naturally have to exterminate the monsters in the vicinity and have groups of soldiers position themselves around this territory.
Then the local groups would have two days to prepare, while he hoped to receive all the local high-value materials in those two days to prepare the local forces.
That was all that was discussed at this morning's meeting, before Vicente headed off toward the local Blacksmiths Association and the many sentries set off to form the teams they would need to have ready for their new objectives.
...
While Rory and the others were busy helping Dresbert's sentinels and even ordinary citizens, Vicente received all the materials he could get in this city early this evening.
As he assessed the loads that had just been unloaded in the main shed of the association's grandiose building, he was silent for a moment, while local blacksmiths watched him.
Under the observation of 15 blacksmiths, Vicente activated his magical powers, revealing his pentagrams as he manipulated the materials the local organizations had left there for him.
While those blacksmiths were obviously impressed, staring wide-eyed at Vicente's pentagram configuration, he combined some of his skills, totally transmuting some materials.
There were items there that could be classified as 3rd grade. But the moment he started manipulating them, these materials decreased in quantity by around 60%, while showing a fresh glow, becoming 4th grade items.
Something similar, but in different proportions, happened with the 4th grade items, some reaching the peak of their qualitative range, others even reaching the 5th grade.
Once he had the materials at the grade he needed, Vicente started with the easiest, shaping powerful 4th grade firearms.
As these weapons were to be used by soldiers fighting a war against monsters, he specifically molded weapons of only 4 types.
One was a medium-range rifle, useful for dealing with enemies up to a few dozen meters away. Another was a long-range rifle, capable of being used to deal with opponents hundreds of meters away.
The third type was a shotgun, capable of causing terrible injuries when used up to a few meters away. This weapon would be ideal for use against beings with sturdy bodies who were already too close to the weapon's user.
Finally, the fourth and last type of weapon would be a machine gun, capable of firing dozens of shots per minute, extremely useful for dealing with many enemies close to the user of the weapon.
He molded the four types of ammunition for these weapons, putting his own characteristics into each one to make them even more destructive.
In particular, he infused the poisonous mist characteristic into each of the bullets, thinking about the monsters that would be resistant to those bullets and could cause problems for his men post-firing.
He would create 150 4th grade weapons tonight, along with 20,000 bullets, enough to arm a small battalion capable of fighting a few battles.
That wasn't much. Stopping to rest when much of Dresbert was asleep, he intended to create another 150 guns and 80,000 bullets by dawn.
He needed to create a lot of ammunition beforehand, since it would be difficult for the locals to get such good ammunition in the future. But he would leave an ammunition production model for local blacksmiths to produce and prepare for the future when the 100,000 bullets would be fully used.
...
After a full night's work, Vicente would reach his goal of weapons and ammunition at the start of a new day, when he would once again stop to rest before going ahead with his plans.
He still had 4th grade materials, so as soon as he had finished meditating, recovering the mana spent during the night, he went back to producing 4th grade items, this time creating armor that would be like 4th stage living beings!
After the 4th stage armor, he would use the 5th grade materials to produce 5th stage armor similar to that worn by his five magical companions.
It would cost Vicente a whole day to produce 16 4th stage armors and 4 5th stage armors, but before nightfall in Dresbert, he would have all the items he planned to develop ready to distribute to the strongest sentries in the city!