Chapter 29: Valley Base
A full two weeks had passed since the road construction began.
Kaito discovered a peculiar phenomenon.
All skeletons, whether farming in the valley or guarding Iron Fortress, had all advanced to Tier 3.
Evidently, labor—farming, blacksmithing, building houses—could genuinely cause skeletons to evolve.
However, those skeletons belonging to Greed's State Affairs Legion but working in the Valley Base...
Still retained the appearance of Skeleton Soldiers; they hadn't transformed into the Ghoul form like Greed's personal guard.
Valley Entrance.
The final section of the road surface set under the light of the Rock Hardening spell, connecting seamlessly with the endless gray avenue.
A flat, wide road was now complete, an invisible illusion barrier flowing silently above it.
Four hundred mages of the Arcane Legion and their Adjutant stood quietly behind Kaito like 401 lifeless statues.
Their casting process had no wasted movement, and their standby posture was equally silent.
Kaito's will had already pierced through the valley, enveloping the place where his rise to power began.
In the soul link, headache-inducing scenes were being broadcast in real-time.
By the field ridge, the old Chief of Bone Village was doing push-ups incessantly, shouting something about "rehabilitation training."
In a pit nearby, a Skeleton Soldier lay flat in a peaceful posture, arms crossed over its chest, even carefully adjusting the position of its pelvis.
"Damn it! Stop lying in there every day!"
A young villager named Buck face-palmed and said:
"The seed is the wheat grain, this thing! Even if you plant yourself, you won't grow a litter of little skeletons next year!"
The Skeleton Soldier just scratched its thigh bone.
So what?
Not far away, another disaster was unfolding.
Buck pounced rapidly toward a squad of Skeleton Soldiers, trying to rescue a bag of freshly sprouted potatoes from their bony hands.
"Stop! Stop right now! You can't boil them! These are seeds! If you boil them, they'll really die!"
The squad of Skeleton Soldiers tilted their heads. The lead skeleton stated bluntly:
"Raw food must be cooked. If we plant them cooked, they'll be cooked when dug up. No need to cook again. No problem!"
Neither side convinced the other.
From the direction of the smithy came waves of doomsday-like noise.
Ding, ding, ding... CLANG! ...Clang!
Blacksmith Paul swung his hammer, sweat soaking his tattered clothes.
He felt like he wasn't smithing; he was fighting a war.
"Use the tongs! Use the tongs to hold that iron! Not your hand!"
Paul roared at a skeleton apprentice.
The skeleton apprentice was using its five finger bones to firmly grasp a red-hot iron ingot, pressing it onto the anvil.
Another apprentice was holding a whetstone, grinding the corner of the anvil stroke by stroke, as if trying to sharpen the anvil into a sword.
And another one—the one that broke Paul the most—was sticking its left finger bone into the forge fire.
Then pulling it out to check the color, seemingly using its own bone to calibrate the flame temperature.
"Did my life go wrong somewhere?"
Paul howled at the sky.
In the wooden cabin used as the Royal Academy, the atmosphere was equally bizarre.
Lloyd and Rosen, the two former squires of Iron Fortress, were lying on a huge beast skin, studying whose butt was bigger.
Laughter echoed in the small hut, carrying a sense of resignation even they hadn't noticed.
Kaito's soul core fluctuated gently.
Enough.
This village life filled with performance art and abstract creation could come to an end.
Kaito strode forward, entering the valley.
The moment he stepped into the valley, all the noise in the world was cut off by an invisible hand.
Buck, still wrestling with skeletons over cooked potatoes, froze mid-action.
The old Chief, leaning on his stick watching skeletons plant themselves, dropped his stick with a clatter.
In the wooden cabin, Lloyd and Rosen's laughter stopped abruptly, the blood draining from their faces.
They scrambled and rolled out of the hut, prostrating themselves on the ground in a standard posture of total submission.
Clang!
The hammer in Blacksmith Paul's hand smashed onto his foot, but he didn't even feel the pain.
He and his ten bizarre apprentices, along with all the skeletons in the valley currently planting themselves, polishing anvils, or studying stone structures...
Stopped all movement at the same time.
The next second.
All skeletal units in the valley, regardless of what they were doing a second ago, turned in unison with military precision to face Kaito's direction and knelt on one knee.
Clack—
The uniform sound of bone collision merged into a wave in the silent valley.
Humans trembled in fear; the undead knelt in submission.
Kaito paced to the center of the valley, where his crude throne used to be.
He didn't sit down. He just turned to face the living humans prostrating on the ground, shaking like leaves in the wind.
"From today on, there is no need for you to stay here."
Kaito's voice carried no emotion, resonating directly in everyone's brain through soul energy.
It's over.
We're being silenced.
This was the only thought flashing through the humans' minds. Their utility value had finally been squeezed dry.
"Your posts will be transferred entirely to Iron Fortress Territory."
Kaito's second sentence caused everyone's brain to crash.
What?
Iron Fortress? Didn't the skeletons say that was a conquered city?
Lloyd and Rosen looked up abruptly, eyes full of question marks.
What kind of operation is this? Going home?
"My Lord... Supreme Lord Ruler..."
The old Chief used all the courage he had accumulated in his life, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
"May I ask... what do we need to do there?"
"Continue your current work."
Kaito's gaze swept over each of them.
"Your knowledge is still useful to my citizens. Iron Fortress has better facilities, a broader platform. Your teaching will continue there."
Kaito's gaze finally landed on Blacksmith Paul.
"You. Blacksmith Paul."
"Yes! Yes! My Lord! This lowly one is here!" Paul practically crawled forward on hands and feet, pressing his forehead dead against the dirt.
"Your apprentices have mastered how to pull bellows, how to pass tools, and how to use their own bodies to test temperature."
Kaito stated a fact.
"But your skills, your vision, severely limit their upper bound."
"Outside Iron Fortress, there is an entire mountain. A mountain composed entirely of high-grade iron ore."
Kaito paused.
"I need you, there, to teach them how to forge true weapons and armor."
"I need a steel legion armed to the teeth, not a farm tool repair team that only knows how to fix hoes and hammer nails."
An entire... iron ore mountain?
Paul's brain buzzed, going blank.
As a country blacksmith who haggled for half a day just to buy a piece of scrap iron...
The impact of this sentence made him instantly forget his fear, forget where he was.
Before his eyes, a boundless ocean of steel seemed to appear.
Forge fires illuminated the entire sky; thousands of hammers struck in unison.
That was the most magnificent symphony belonging to a blacksmith.
"I... I am willing!"
Paul raised his head abruptly, tears and snot smearing his face, his voice turning shrill from extreme excitement.
"Blacksmith Paul! Willing to offer these cheap bones and all my skills to you! Until death!"
"No! After death, my soul is also willing to continue forging for you!"
Kaito ignored the blacksmith who had fallen into fanaticism.
He turned to Lust, who had been standing quietly behind him.
"Lust."
"Subordinate is here, My Lord."
The Tier 4 Skeleton Archmage stepped forward, bowing slightly.
"You saw it all."
Kaito asked.
" regarding the placement of these talents, what are your thoughts?"
This was both an inquiry and a test.
Lust's eye sockets burning with purple Soul Fire flickered once. She bowed again.
"My Lord, your wisdom is like a sea of stars. What this subordinate can think of is merely a drop of water in your ocean of wisdom."
"But since you ask, this subordinate dares to offer a suggestion."
"Speak."
"My Lord, moving them to Iron Fortress is not merely an optimized allocation of resources, but a reshaping of their identity."
"In the valley, they are captives, instructors. But in Iron Fortress, in your future Capital, they will become the first batch of Citizens under your rule."
Lust's voice carried a unique rhythm.
"This will generate a sense of belonging."
"A blacksmith, once he possesses an entire mountain of iron, will never want to return to that broken smithy where he can only make hoes."
"Two squires, once they become drafters of an Imperial Blueprint, will never miss the days of polishing boots for some petty noble."
"What you give them is far more than what they lost. This is the highest tier of leadership."
Kaito's soul core pulsed.
As expected of Lust. Always able to interpret new heights from the psychological level.
"Not bad. Go execute it." Kaito waved his bony hand.