Three Days Later, 8th Floor of the Tower, Demon Continent, Farmer's House, later evening hours.
Samiel and Yvraine spent several days at the farming house he found on his journey, as Yvraine was getting continuously better and better. Surprisingly, Samiel took a liking to this rustic place and enviroment, yes, it was not any kind of luxury, but after he ordered his Undeads to renovate it a bit, he realized that the entire former farmer's house was pretty cozy and nice.
The only problem she had, were the after-effects of the curses. Because the curses were inflicted by the very strong Cured Forest, they were relatively potent, so even someone like Yvraine, who was a Silvermoon Elf and Holy Apostle of Eluria, the main Goddess of the Seldari Pantheon, needed some time to recuperate from the after-effects fully.
Fortunately, it was just fatigue and tiredness, which she got rid of it, by resting properly. Samiel spent most of his time cooking and taking care of Yvraine, who already, on the second day, wanted to train in her swordsmanship, which Samiel strictly forbade her.
Even though Samiel was in no way a healer or doctor, as a Necromancer, he was pretty knowledgeable about dealing with the after-effects of various curses. This was something that came with the occupation, and on top of being knowledgeable about dealing with the aftermath of curses, he could also deal with many poisons.
Typically, after the curse was dispersed from the cursed person, the most common procedure was to just rest and properly ate. Yeh, it sounded pretty stupid and easy, but sometimes the simplest way was the most effective one.
Also, drink every day some Mana Potions and potions with healing effects and similar things to speed up the recovery rate. Clearly, it pretty much paid off when Yvraine started getting better, and on the third day they were on this, Yvraine already got rid of all side effects of the curses and poisons from the Cursed Forest.
"Tomorrow, we would be continuing our journey to the nearest city... it should be the one controlled by the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe?"
Samiel stated as he returned to the cooking.
"What do we have for dinner today?"
Yvraine asked eagerly while Nefertari opened her eyes slightly, looking at her hooman. In fact, Yvraine was already bet fed up by eating the rabbit stew; she quickly found out that she didn't like the rabbit, and even Nefertari wanted to eat something else.
"Today, we have a goat, peak Bronze-Tier that Ashimer hunted."
Samiel stated as Yvraine's eyes shone in anticipation, and Nefertari was technically the same because she liked to eat goat meat. Or rather, Nefertari liked any kind of meat if it was from the higher-tiered magical beast, or even if not, she just liked eating.
"When do you think that the final war between the two of those will begin?"
Yvraine asked Samiel, while she was watching him butcher up peak Level 50 Bronze-Tier goat-type magical beasts. This was because for the past days, more precisely, yesterday, his Undeads confronted several hundred members of the Human Brotherhood who somehow found their way to the Demon Continent.
Though truth to be told, it was not that surprising because they were located in one of the areas where the fighting between humans and demons was pretty common, but even then, in such large numbers and especially the way they were armed.
Samiel noticed that all of them were relatively strong... for an unawakened. And this was becoming very, very suspicious as he sensed some foul play here.
After Samiel became the Holy Son of the Hall of Kadath, he delved a bit deeper into the topic of Classes and Awakening. It was pretty simple; a person would undergo awakening the moment he was born because, technically speaking, from that moment the life was created, he would have been already awakened as a Class Bearer and obtain some kind of Class.
Naturally, the majority of the Professionals had trash classes, pretty common ones, more often being nothing more than just Archer, Warrior, Caster or something in that way, based on their predisposition and the judgment of the Akashic Records, on their souls and attributes of it.
And then there was a problem if someone failed to Awaken. The basic requirement for the successful awakening and becoming a Class Bearer, thus a full-fledged Professional, was a mana-rich enviroment.
'',
Because of that, the Class Bearer were pretty much rare in the Mana-Less WOrlds such as Earth, and they were considered a rare commodity. Of course, that didn't mean that Unawakened couldn't become Professionals and, for example, a person without a Necromancer Class becomes a Necromancer.
Not, it did not.
But the problem came with that, they would be several times weaker compared to those people who awakened such Class. That was the main reason why the Unawakened were looked down upon, but this time, there was something interesting about the members of the Human Brotherhood that his Undeads slaughtered.
Even though they were Unawakeend, they were still very stronger, probably equal to the Class Bearers. When Samiel, together with Yvraine, examined their bodies and dissected a few of them, he noticed that they were strengthened on the genetic level with some kind of serum that made them several times stronger, essentially pushing them to the level of Awakened Class Bearer and full-fledged Professionals.
"Don't know... it is clear that the Germinal Order, Avalon Kingdom and very possibly Magisterium are playing something, something very dangerous and are planning to use the Human Brotherhood as their test subjects for their unstable serum."
The reason why Samiel stated that their "Super Soldier Serum" as he liked to call it was unstable was that, after Yvraine did a few detections spells on the captured Human Brotherhood goons, Samiel was directing alive, mainly for fun and but also to see an extent of the regenerative capabilities of the serum, noticed one thing.
Aside from the fact that the serum gave them the ability to heal many wounds in real-time, which wasn't very good news because the regeneration rate was approaching that of Trolls, which was bad, but their DNA was decomposing.
Each person who was injected with that Super Soldier Serum would have their lifespan shortened to around only a few years. From what they saw the lifespan of the Bronze-Tier was around five years, Steel-Tier 2 years and Iron-Tier should have around half a month.
Apparently, those with bigger Mana Reserves and stronger Mana were able to prolong their life by some insignificant years, but this was clearly not a problem for the puppeteers in the shadows. Mainly because humans were one of the most common species across the entire Cosmos, and there would be countless people whom they could use as their cannon fodder and foot soldiers in the wars.
"If it is true, then the collaboration between 3 Gates would be dangerous... especially because of the human supremacists of the Avalon and some elements in the Magisterium."
Even though the Avalon Kingdom is basically a human supremacy faction, they didn't have much problem working with Germinal Order which was compromised mainly from the Githyanki and Githzerai races and other psionically talented species.
Not talking about Magisterium, where even humans have turned themselves into abominations and amalgamations of various horrors through countless experiments in order to raise their strength to a new level.
What an irony.
"If they manage to create a stable concoction, they should be able to bolster their cannon fodders to a certain level when it is trouble for our forces to deal with en masse..."
Yvraine muttered as she watched Samiel preparing the goat meat in some exotic way.
"Will it be able to affect and political landscape of the Cosmos on a larger scale, though?"
Samiel was curious about this, to see the potential of this technology because even though if they would succeed in mass-producing the cannon fodder soldiers, it would still be useless in the face of Legendaries and true experts.
"Maybe... depend on the numbers, though I seriously doubt they would be able to push it to create a Legendaries, because that should not be possible. Though there were some civilizations, some of them still have absolutely frightening genetic technology."
Yvraine stopped in her tracks as she then thought about it. Genetic technology across the Cosmos was not something uncommon, though; some of it was pretty terrifying, depending on the origin.
The ones originating from purely technological civilizations had certain limits, but the ones that were birthed in civilizations or factions with advanced Magetech were truly terrifying ones that reached frightening heights.
"Hmm... we can inform our factions about this development and obtain probably some rewards for bringing back some samples of the Synergy of the Super Soldier Serum they have created... in my case, would get some nice number of contribution points."
Samiel stated because he was already running out of the resources he had in his disposition, so harvesting some contribution points was good; also, there was a good possibility that some missions would be posted through the Guild, and that would be another way of getting resources.
'.',
After that, Samiel continued cooking the goat biryani, which was a traditional Indian dish that he came to enjoy, as the fragrance of the dish penetrated the air in the farmer's house, with Yvraine already sneaking peaks at the pot in anticipation of good dinner.
Even Nefertari was already awake and wanting to eat something. Not like it was any surprising considering how much a glutton she was. After one hour or so, the food was finally done, and Samiel opened the lit of the cast iron pot and they could start to eat.
p "Delicious."
Yvraine almost moaned in pleasure when she tasted the first serving of the fresh goat biryani. The rice was cooked perfectly, with the caramelization happening on the bottom of the pot, together with various spices and aromatics that were used in the dish.
"It is biryani; it is a traditional dish from Earth from a country called India."
Samiel stated as he gave himself another serving of the goat biryani. After they finished eating, Nefertari curled herself into a ball near the fireplace and went to sleep while Samiel with Yvraine sat in front of the flaming fireplace and watched the wood burn as they held hands.
"It was a nice place to stay here... it reminded me of some stories I read when I was younger... though this place could be nice and cozy if it wasn't in the such a desolate state and falling apart."
Samiel said after a short time of silence, to which Yvraine only scoffed.
"It is dirty and filthy here and the fact that this place didn't fall onto our heads should be considered a miracle from the Moon Goddess herself."
Yvraine was pretty irritated that we were spending more than three days here because this was not an Imperial Palace or some luxurious villa, but just a wooden hut that was continuously falling apart piece by piece.
And certainly, it was not a place where a respectable princess of the noblest Silvermoon Elves and Nesser Dynasty should be spending her time.
"Yes, yes, Your Imperial Highness and your spoiled ass."
Samiel teased her back; he was, in truth used to even worse housing conditions, so he was pretty much okay with this because at least he had some roof above his head, and that was better than none.
When he was still on Earth, the typical night was countless times worse, especially during the Winter. During that time, Samiel didn't have Lord Class Knight of Niflheim or the Level 3 Ultimate Ability Winter Ruler, which gave him technically immunity towards the cold.
No, during that time, he was just an ordinary Professional who was freezing to death because he was sleeping under the stars. And no matter how romantic it sounded, the reality was often very far from the imagination.
More often, it was wet and cold, pretty uncomfortable and basically worth of a load of dragon dung, and because Samiel spent several years living that lifestyle, he was relatively modest when it came to accommodation.
Yvraine looked at him, not saying anything, probably contemplating about his words. She could see that even though he worked up his way where he was, he, contrary to her, came from the bottom of the Cosmos because there could be nothing worse than originating in the Mana-Less Worlds.
Even being a slave in Lower World was better because you would have Mana, but in a world that was practically on the verge of becoming Mana-Less, one becoming a Professional was considered heavenly luck.
"Now, let's just enjoy our time together."
Samiel said shortly after as he hugged Yvriane; both of them enjoyed the presence of each other. It was nice here; if only the house was in a better state, but it served the purpose. On the other hand, Samiel enjoyed his time with her.
Even Yvraine was happy, judging based on her smile, as she snuggled to his chest. In the end they spend like this several hours, occasionally talking about some minor topics, nothing heavy, not to ruin the atmosphere.