41 The past...

'How about an equal exchange? You tell me your story and I'll tell you mine.'

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"I think we can both agree that we don't want to talk about these matters. Forgive me for prying, it won't happen again."

It would seem the past would remain buried a while longer.

"Now I'll be going. If I find any more precious looking materials I'll bring them for you to take a look. For now, I got to go make some money."

And just like that Aldi left.

I shifted my attention over to Rat. He had still not woken up from his evolution. My evolution was so close yet so far.

Rat's size had been increasing since the beginning of its nap and it had so far reached roughly five meters in height. Still dwarfed when compared to me but the elves all looked at him with dread in their eyes.

In the evening Sven came over. He'd been gone for the last month and I had no clue where he might have been. His visit brought a great deal of good news for me.

Firstly, my apples had godly effects on people of his strength. He had only taken one month to reach the very peak of the knight magus realm. He'd only need a few more apples and he would break through his bottleneck and become a baron magus.

Secondly, he had found the territory of a savage beast while exploring. Based on his observations I concluded that it was a wyrm.

What was it with all the dragon and serpent species in this world? There were so many of them!

Anyway, I sent the two adult verdant serpents and 50 tempest wolves with Sven to hunt it. Since Sven was a hunter and didn't do close-quarter combat I couldn't give him a suitable weapon but decided to give him ten arrows made of heavenly steel instead.

The whole troop looked quite fearsome when it marched off into the wilderness. With their speed, the journey there and back would take about 10 days. Add the time to slay the wyrm and maybe some preparations before the attack and they should return in 15 days.

Since all my adult savage beast had left, I felt a little defenseless and decided to grow to more.

My recruitment hadn't made much progress so far. In an attempt to change that, I grew new boards in the town below. Renewing the old trade deals I also added a recruitment notice.

The clamor from the trees growing out of nowhere drew the attention of the inhabitants. Many of them hadn't dared to approach the boards before due to my proximity. Now that I was a giant tree in the distance, they swarmed the board filled with curiosity.

My recruitment notice was short and didn't go into much detail. It promised great reward and nurturing of potential in exchange for lifelong loyalty. Many seemed tempted but shook their heads after some contemplation and left.

I would have to create a bond of trust to get them to serve me. I needed an example that showed how much I could allow someone to get stronger. Sven hadn't reached the necessary level yet. I'd need someone who was at least a viscount magus. It would take a while before I could use him as an example.

Ideally, I'd like to recruit someone at the peak baron magus level and just help them break through to viscount magus.

In the end, the crowd had disappeared. There was only one figure left standing there. A heavy cloak covered their features and they had a beast's corpse slung over their back.

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The beast looked to be a wooden panther. A beast that had high stealth and camouflage abilities. Its jaw had a great crushing force and made for a nasty surprise.

The cloaked figure was dragging a leg behind them. Seems they had learned about the bite of the wooden panther the hard way. Limping heavily, the cloaked figure passed the board and slowly made their way up to me.

The beast was thrown at me in an aggressive manner. A low and raspy came out from under the low drawn hood.

"I want to trade for one silver ingot."