Chapter 648 Eldrian's To Do List

When Eldrian returned, the first thing he did was send his morning report of the orcs' movements. Due to the delay in preparing his new 'home', he was a few hours late. Hopefully, this would not cause any problems in the battle.

[[Eldrain] - Elizabeth, be careful. Some of the stronger orcs I marked seemed to have moved. They are likely trying to set up a trap.]

[[Elizabeth] - Do you think they realized your ability?]

[[Eldrian] - Maybe, but they might only know that I can track their movements. They shouldn't know that I can also analyze the relative strength of their groups too. Mark these groups in particular as dangerous, it would be best to avoid them. But if the kingdom has the strength killing them would deal the orcs a heavy blow.]

Sadly, Eldrian didn't always have the time to comb through all the enemies. Due to time constraints, he normally went through a portion each day and marked those who were especially strong. By doing so they were separated from the rest of the red dots.

Those marked, Eldrian made their color black. This stood out well amongst the throng of red dots. Friends who he marked in a similar manner he made green, against the standard blue that the rest of the kingdom was.

[[Elizabeth] - Wouldn't doing so reveal more information to them?] Her concern was not for naught, after all, countering a trap would clearly show that the enemy's ability was greater than first thought.

[[Eldrian] - Leave that to the king to decide. He should weigh if taking out two of the Tier 8 chieftains is worth the risk of revealing our hand. Besides, there were also a number of shamans in this trap it seems.]

He was not sure how valuable the shamans were. Like mages, he felt that they would be vulnerable if alone or unprepared. But given time and protection, they should be a force to be reckoned with.

Even knowing he should not be conceited, Eldrian could not help but look down on them. A mage's casting time was simply too long, having cooldowns was so restrictive, and being unable to truly control their spells was such a great disadvantage.

'I should not assume that they are one and the same. Besides, Myropsis is one who had never aimed to be a war mage. Making her the benchmark is not smart, she is a quick thinker and innovative, but she is not meant for war.'

The shamans would however just be the cherry on top. The true win would be killing these two Tier 8 chieftains. Eldrian understood clearly that a chieftain must be far stronger than a orc warrior, they are the true backbone of the orc army and each loss would be as significant as the kingdom losing a city leader or commander.

Outside of the Eight Claws, there were only four other Tier 8 chieftains. Two who followed the Tier 8 warlord Wrug, whose followers were the ones who had sieged Diades, and these two.

These two had thus far only been raiding with their own orc bands. Not joining the main orc army, they were also not followers of any of the three warlords. And their forces were impressive indeed, their orc bands would appear to be true elite bands.

On Eldrian's map, each orc band had at least ten black dots. Thus over ten orcs in each group were Tier 8. And now these guys were moving to lay a trap.

Naturally, not just the chieftains and shamans could reach Tier 8. The orc warriors could accomplish the same achievement. Though, it appeared certain that no normal orc could get past Tier 5. Similarly, Eldrian had not found to date any Tier 9 orc warriors.

But considering how rare Tier 9 people were in general, Eldrian could not be sure if the difficulty was the reason or if the orc race had some restrictions. After all, they had plenty of advantages. Eldrian felt that in nature pros and cons always came hand in hand.

Back to these two chieftains in particular, thus far the kingdom had been unable to handle them. After all, to do so would require someone who was truly talented and who owned exquisite gear to bridge the gap between him and a chieftain's raw power.

This was quite rare, only the commanders and a select few could afford this. Most of them were however constantly required to protect the cities.

This also completely ignored the rest of the orcs accompanying the chieftains. To simply reach them would require a truly elite squad, which the kingdom simply could not form. Even if they could, sending them out would be too great of a risk.

The only reason Eldrian felt the kingdom might attempt something this time was because they would have the advantage of not just choosing the battleground, but also the time. Since the orcs wanted to lay a trap for them, the kingdom could encase them in an even bigger trap.

'There is no need to kill the enemy by the sword if you can simply lead them to a deadly array.' Eldrian had thought, but such preparations would certainly reveal their hand. Formation masters were normally not considered a person with combat ability, but given the right conditions they could kill those at the peak without ever endangering themselves.

Eldrian did not consider this much further, understanding that for the moment this was not something that he should be more involved with. He was no strategist and while he questioned many of the decisions made by the kingdom, only time would tell who was right.

After sorting things out, Eldrian meditated for a bit. Confirming the progress of his mana network. Before it had been like casting hot iron, when he had remade the pathways each time it was like remelting and recasting them. This time, he felt he would not be able to follow the same methods.

The next alteration would be difficult, like cold working metal. 'I should not get ahead of myself. The future me will always be smarter and more knowledgeable. If I am to work on my mana network, I should keep that in mind and always leave room for improvement.'

'Ah, I missed this.' Two mumbled, enjoying the energy in the air. Lifting his spirits and revitalizing him. He could finally feel truly at home.

Eldrian smiled but did not comment, getting up he headed out. Lightly greeting those in the tavern and nodding to those training outside.

'There are two tasks that I need to accomplish in the following days.' Eldrian mumbled, picking up relatively large rocks and sticks as he walked around the town. 'First, confirm the most effective method of controlling objects shaped as weapons with ether. My control of ether should be sufficient at this point to do this, I should find my limits.'

'Second, reach the next Tier in melee. If I want to use Crystoi fully I need to meet its attribute requirements. If it is only my hidden class and magic then I might fall short.' Eldrian was not sure what the growth was going to be, uncertain too if he would have enough free attributes to bridge the gap.

Currently, his strength was certainly the most lacking. Ignoring his reduced stats that were now around 85% their original, he needed 200 strength. Of his other attributes, he would only require a little over a hundred.

'I hope the Tier 5 will be enough. Maybe if I am close enough I can even subvert the requirements...' Eldrian pondered as he got to work experimenting. Two also joined, helping speed up how quickly Eldrian could grasp his abilities.

When he tired he took out his spear and worked through his routine.

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