Chapter 258: Uruk

The next morning, Tristan went to check on the chosen site where his army of Uruk had settled.

It was located inside part of the Forbidden Forest that was situated near to Caerleon, which was about an hour-long ride from the center of the city. 

To create an appropriate place for the hordes of Uruks that were available, the most important factor was easy access to water and food. And for this, they needed to find ideal places to hunt and bodies of water. 

A small stream that branched from the huge, rushing river ahead was only a few minutes away from the site, and there was easy access for hunting as they were in the lushest part of the forest. 

As for the structure of the building itself, the orcs and Uruks did not need much at all. They only needed a minimal amount of facilities to get by due to their extremely resilient nature. 

Just like the orcs, the Uruks are a race that were genetically created to be sturdy. They needed only the bare minimum to survive, to the point where they only needed a few hours of sleep every few days.

With that in mind, Uriel simply created a communal sleeping area with a capacity of 1000 Uruks. That should be more than enough for the things that were to come. 3000 to 5000 Uruks could use the place in shifts and it's still more than enough

What the builders were currently making was a palisade to provide some degree of protection to the site.

When Tristan arrived at the main tent, he saw that the fat elf Uriel appeared to be frustrated, pacing around restlessly with his hands behind his back. 

"They are abominations!" He screamed when he saw that Tristan had entered the tent. "They eat 5 times more than a normal human being! And even worse, they don't ever sleep or rest! Their noise keeps me up all night!"

Tristan smirked in response. 

"I see that you have understood my people better, Uriel," As he said this, Tristan emphasized the words my people, which made the fat elf smile wryly upon hearing them. 

"Yes, yes. Of course, Sir Tristan, I just need to make sure that my assistant will learn well..." 

Tristan then stepped closer to the assistant's side, leaning down to speak against his ear. 

"Just keep this in mind that these Uruks can eat anything," he started, smiling wickedly. "If they get hungry enough, they would start to look at all of you differently, if you get what I mean."

The assistant immediately jumped, quickly beginning to sweat profusely at Tristan's words. He immediately reassured him that they would try their best to find alternative food sources for the Uruks.

With a grin, Tristan turned to Uriel again before saying, "But you are right, though, Uriel. These are big concerns. A thousand orcs or Uruks will suck these forests dry within a few weeks."

Because of this, Tristan reminded Uriel to place more importance on finding additional food resources. He wouldn't want the Uruks to go berserk and trash the place he had put a lot of effort into building. 

These Uruks are born as warriors After all, It will be more efficient if these fighters just focus on what they do best - fighting, while as a matter of food and other things can be provided.

Tristan then trudged forwards to the fields ahead, and he saw that the hundreds and hundreds of Uruks had been told to cut wood and dig at the grounds in order to make the necessary materials for the builders to later install. 

And overseeing it all was Karra, who looked on the workers overhead. 

"Welcome, Chief," the female orc said cheerfully, bowing slightly as she gave her respects to Tristan. 

"Any notes to pass along so far?" He asked, squinting at the sun that was beating down his face as he tried to observe what was going on in front of him. 

Karra explained that she found it surprising that the Uruks were much more disciplined than her fellow orcs. These grey creatures would do the work as soon as orders were given, completely without questions or complaints at all. 

Tristan wasn't too surprised upon hearing this, after all, all of this was possible because Tristan had successfully altered the genetic imprint of these Uruks with his blood, hence the reason why they followed the female orc obediently as soon as Tristan gave the orders for them to follow Karra. 

The tasks given to them regarding cutting the wood and digging the grounds were part of preparing their camp, and most importantly, it was to give them the basic task of following simple commands. He wanted to see what limits they could be pushed to, and whether or not they would retaliate when they were told what to do. 

Unfortunately, Karra said that although they were physically stronger, the Uruks were dumb. Even dumber than the orcs, in fact, and that was saying something. It took Karra a dozen practical examples just for them to understand how to cut trees down without being crushed by them.

Next, Karra showed Tristan the other half of the Uruks, the few hundred that were being given trials to start using weapons. Surprisingly, they knew how to work with them effectively without much training at all. It was almost instinctual. 

"They are pretty much the same with the orcs, we are genetically imprinted to survive, after all."

For the next few hours, Tristan watched how the Uruks were shown how to fight, unarmed and using melee weapons. Some took minutes, others took hours before they finally got used to the hidden imprint inside of them.

When noon came and the sun was at its highest, the place was visited by hundreds of new tenants. These were Tristan's orcs hordes that had been called upon to gather here today.

Two weeks ago, before he went to Forlorn, Tristan had sent Karra to approach the surrounding orc tribes and recruit the small orc tribes or groups, and within the last two weeks, apparently, their numbers had successfully increased threefold up to 300 orcs. 

Unfortunately almost half of them are Gretchin, the smaller, weaker orcs. The other half was the Grunts' warrior orcs and the rest were the 25 champions that were augmented by him. 

The 300 orcs were gathered together with the 1000 Uruks and Tristan hoped to use this time to compare them both to check their differences in physiology. 

Although Tristan was not using his scanner, he already knew from his previous scan the difference in their average battle power. 

Gretchin: 20 battle power

Grunts: 40 battle power

Uruk: 55 battle power

Champion: 75 battle power

Now it was time to test their skills, and what other way could it have been than to stage a fight between the two species. 

Karra chose 100 of the Uruks, the ones that had been practicing how to fight, and picked 100 Grunts. To make sure these less intelligently refined species did not kill each other, Tristan made sure for them to practice with wooden or blunt weapons.

It was such a brutal battle as both sides had a very strong will to win the fight. 

The result was a win by the orcs on the first try. After a short break, they fought one another again. Finally, on the third fight, the Uruks won the fight and never lost another one again.

These Uruks that were gathered were just like newborn babies; they needed a little training to start understanding their strength. By the end of the day, one Uruk could match two orcs, but the orcs needed a third one to overwhelm it. 

Without doubt, the grey creatures were simply stronger, faster, and less emotional than the orcs which made them easier to organize. They were the perfect soldiers, really, but the main problem now was that these Uruks were unable to evolve. 

Once more, Tristan tried his Augmented Blood Seal, and the result was that the Grunts were able to evolve into Champions with twice the strength they had before, while the Uruks only increased a small margin of battle power.

With the result that one Uruk could best about 3 to 4 orcs, Tristan believed that at the end of the day, these Uruks would only be ideal foot soldiers, while the orcs would be the best species to be nurtured. 

In the end, while still waiting for the next batch to return, Tristan told Karra to teach these Uruks a few simple battle formations. He also wanted her to start mixing the two between Uruks and the orcs, to see if they would actually fight better or if it would only make them perform more poorly. All of them must be ready to battle in 2 weeks.

Tristan left the camp and went back to Caerleon. He was interested to check out the workshop; maybe the blacksmithing skills he learned in Vanyar would prove to be useful.