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2024-10-29 19:42:56Over the next week, the markets at Scorched Eartch City went crazy.
First, there seemed to be a major shortage of pharmaceuticals.
Then, the Xue family abruptly began to sell everything they had. A lot of useful basic pills were sold at premium prices. The Alchemist Guild, upon hearing the news, immediately pounced on them and investigated those pills, but it turned all, all of them had been bought legitimately, and clearly found on their own records. The Xue Family was above susicion especially since pills weren’t all they sold. They sold everything! Furniture, houses, shops... even clothing and dishes were sold out in massive yard sales.
“Y-you’re moving?!” Mu Hou quailed when he finally managed to meet up with Big Li and Little Li. “The entire Clan?!”
“That’s right.” Xue Yueli answered.
“B-but why?”
“The city is getting too dangerous. The demons are coming, and anywhere highly populated is like a huge buffet for them. We need to go.
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Kingdom of the Weak 419. Downtime
While Phoebe, Lydia, Sabriane and the other medical crews were rejoicing over the influx of medicine, George was groaning in bed. Every part of his body was aching, and several bones had been broken when they brought him back from his most recent adventure. Sitting next to him was a pile of scrap that used to be his Heavy Frame. It was so badly wrecked, Arnold took one look and immediately gave up on it. On the other side of him from the armor was the one good thing that came out of this whole ordeal; Raven sitting by his bedside, rubbing medicinal ointment into his injured back. This all came about from him trying to play hero several days ago. When Mu Bao was cornered and Mindy took her revenge, he was there to lend a helping hand... Some help he was! A single punch from a robed guy basically shattered his armor. George, refusing to be useless, instantly gave up trying to do any real damage and sought to impede the enemy’s escape, and so spent most of his t
Kingdom of the Weak 420. Desire for power
Captain Lance found George moping around after fully recovering from his injuries. “I know that look. It’s the one that says ‘I want to get stronger!’” “What?” George was startled out of his melancholy. “Don’t worry. Everybody goes through such times. Nobody is ever able to breeze through life without facing difficulties. It’s at this point that you pick yourself up and get stronger...” “Strong enough to match... her?” George asked, glancing back the way he was looking earlier. Lance paused and took a look. There was Mindy in the new training area... “Goodness, she’s strong.” She was crippled in terms of cultivation. Her bond-mate had practically died. Yet here she was ignoring the regular systems of using the gym machine by setting specific weights and using the entire machine as a barbell. What does a girl like that need cultivation for? She was already stronger than most martialists below the Earth Qi level. “She used to be
Kingdom of the Weak 421. Sneaking Around on Xiao Yan’s World
By that time, the Xue Clan was already selling Mindy’s products to the Grand Luo continent. While the bulk of their family made it safely through the Portal and settled around Kara-Goth, the hundreds of clan members who remained in their homeworld set out across the continent and beyond selling home appliances and small airships built with Qi Formations. It was getting less and less profitable toward the end of the month as competitors suddenly flooded the market practically overnight selling imitation versions of appliances and airships using similar Qi formations, or in some cases, even better Qi formations than what Xiao Yan could manage. To keep growing their businesses the Xue family had to expand their operations to towns and cities farther and farther away. It came to the point that they finally had to call in their lone Sky Qi ancestor for help to bring their trade across to other continents, starting with the Grand Luo Continent. That was why the Grand Luo C
Kingdom of the Weak 422. One Month Later
A month passed peacefully.Well, not entirely peacefully. As more and more refugees flooded Fal’Herim and Kara-Goth, many spontaneous conflicts broke out. People fought for food, for resources, for space, for culture, for dignity, for attention, for fun, for the sake of bad tempers, or even for practically no reason at all. The Order of Light had their hands full bringing people in, and the Order of Steel had their hands full keeping them in line while the Order of Sand scrambled about recruiting more and more people to scavenge food in the Wildlands trying to keep everyone fed.Despite their best efforts, halfway through the month, the Xue Clan overshot them in the amount of food brought in. The sheer volume of trade they did in Xiao Yan’s world had risen to well over three billion Black in that month alone. Roughly one billion Black was spent buying food and herbs. The money spent was Mindy’s cut, but the effort was entirely theirs since Mindy herse
Kingdom of the Weak 423. Lakes and Fishing
Alani took action very quickly and very decisively. She sent messages and called for a Meet three days later. What happened next was fairly predictable. The big Lord Challengers mocked her, scorned her, teased her for being a weak little human girl, and... BAM! With a howl, one streaked leopard Lord Challenger went flying uncontrollably through the air. POW! “Uwooohh!!” an oversized boar went tumbling down the hill. BOOM! A giant ape was smashed face-first into the dirt. With roars, the rest of the Lord Challengers gathered at the meet all descended upon the little girl with a small turtle floating above her shoulder. KAPOW! WHACK! SLAM! In short order, the whole bunch of Challengers were wiped out, leaving Alani the sole candidate for the Lordship of Seven Lakes. “Congratulations... I guess?” George mustered. “Well done.” Reef told Alani simply. “The Deep Emperor bears witness. From now
Kingdom of the Weak 424. Xue and Zhao
At this point, Craggy Falls was really starved for skilled labor. There were plenty of refugees, but the biggest need for labor right now was for solar technicians, and most of those refugees couldn’t tell which way was up when it came to solar panels. They could be trained enough to install panels, if someone techier handled the tricky stuff. The bulk of the installation process had already been dumbed down to plug-and-play by Ermine’s best efforts. Even so, the work was delicate, precise and required the use of late Class 3 tools. Part of that was because Ermine had her autoforges churning out Nanowire Solar Cells designed to absorb the full sectrum of sunlight both visible and invisible. Already they covered roughly half the water surfaces of the Seven Lakes. These were enough to power all the aquaponics pumps and cycling systems, along with some few structures, for lighting and cooling and such. Given that they had spent five million Clira for that tech,
Kingdom of the Weak 425. Zhao and Kara-Goth
The plan for the Zhao family to take a quick look and then return failed miserably. It started when the Xue family invited them to go visit Kara-Goth. After all, there was nothing in the Dragon Empire that they hadn’t seen back on their homeworld, most of the human worlds in the Draconian Dominion were similar that way, except maybe for the airships, a legacy of the Quarin. No, the real fun was in the Wildlands! The minute they saw the new Arena at Kara-Goth, every notion of ‘a quick look’ immediately vanished. The Order of Light, the Order of Steel, the Order of Sand, the Adventurers, the Wilds, and even some daring refugees all had different styles of warfare and different kinds of powers, from martial Qi to magic to psionics or sheer brute physical strength. The Zhao easily blended in and took up a few duels and sparring sessions... That did it. They stayed there for the rest of the day and only went looking around the rest of Kara-Goth the next morning. T
Kingdom of the Weak 426. Other Animals
It was around that time that the peace and smooth operations of Kara-Goth was disrupted. “Warehouse Security went on strike!” Xiao Yan blurted to Remian. “Who went on what?!” Remian sat there in a daze, interrupted in the middle of trying to design a rudimentary anti-gravity device. “It’s the bears!” Xiao Yan groaned. “They’re saying they’re mistreated!” “Bears?” Remian stared at her blankly. “What bears?” “The ones guarding the warehouse!” “We have bears guarding the warehouse?” “We’ve ALWAYS had bears guarding the warehouse! According to George they’ve been doing it since the Adventurers Guild first started!” Xiao Yan spluttered. “Don’t you remember?” Remian thought back. Way, way back when their Adventurer Guild was only a little log hall on the outskirts of town, back when all they had were a bunch of kids from the Raven Tavern who slept with the wolfcats in the dining hall every night and felt they were lucky to do
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523. Comms
Somewhere along the line, he’d lost consciousness. George only realized it when he woke up to a splitting headache. “Ow.” He groaned. “What... where...?” “We’re on the way back to Sorrel.” Grace told him, appearing by his bedside. And it was a bedside, he realized. He seemed to be in the Kara’s Medical Bay. “I’m sorry. We had to retreat.” “Our... people?” George managed. “The HAC Troopers made it back. The Mechs... did not.” Grace paused. “We have the refugees though. And the Robotic Assembly Plant for Mining Drones. That’s all they managed to grab.” George slurred. “Mech pilots?” “Alive, if battered.” “Good. Alive is good.” George sighed. “This... didn’t go so well.” “Hey, at least we got the guys we were trying to save, and some machinery on top of that. You might say it was a success. A costly one, but a success.” “Casualties?” George asked. “Plenty of injuries to go around, but no deaths. So far.” Grace paused. “Some of the really badly injured might change that before lo
- Kingdom of the Weak
522. Second Aid Mission
“Were these really the best you could do?” George asked, eyeing the six hulking figures in front of him hesitantly. “Mmm.” Juni grunted. In front of them were six brand new Mechs. 2nd Generation products, they were armored weapons platforms on legs, with jumpjets for the signature ‘jumps’ that earned their generation the nickname, ‘Jumpers’. Or were they? George wasn’t entirely sure. When he looked at them, they really looked more like 1st Generation Walker-types. Those Jump Jets seemed to be an afterthought, an added equipment haphazardly strapped to their backs. “Would they really work right?” Juni shrugged. Given the time and materials he had to work with, George supposed he couldn’t expect better. He had only just received 2nd Gen tech. Until now, he’d been working with 1st Gen expectations and schematics. One of these Mechs seemed a bit worn, evidence that it had been built quite some time ago, and only recently been modified for George’s requests. “Fusion Cell for power, Pu
- Kingdom of the Weak
521. Next Step
It turned out that they also needed to acquire salvage rights to haul away ‘scrap metal’. Fortunately, that was a simple affair now that they had local currency. 50 USD and the matter was done. Grant, being the nearest specialist on matters of scrap to their location, graciously offered to transport their ‘scrap’ directly to their vessel out of sheer goodwill. Finally Benny and Sam went to try out the barbecued skewers. At Grant’s recommendation, though, they didn’t go to the Starport roadside stall. They ended up at another roadside stall run by a ‘foreign refugee’ someplace downtown not too far from Grant’s workshop. There, each skewer was loaded with rows of thick, juicy beef sausages, and only cost 20 USD for 10. Benny stretched. “Not bad for our first day. We’ve got three days here, don’t we? But we’ve already got half of what we wanted.” “What’s the other half?” Sam asked. “Technical manuals on engineering, power and propulsion. Tech, basically.” Benny yawned. However, whe
- Kingdom of the Weak
520. Uber States Colony
“Black Fang, you are cleared for docking. Follow the designated path and welcome to Trifer, colony of the Uber States.” Benny stood on the observation deck of the Black Fang below the bridge, listening to the conversation between the comms officer and the dock authorities. He eyed the massive sprawl of structures and smoke emitted below and wondered. “This is what they call a ‘small’ colony?” The colony was bigger than Craggy Falls, Kara-Goth and Nightshade City put together. “Just how many people live here?” Benny asked next. “According to our sensors, about half a million.” The bridge crew told him. Okay, that was less than the human population of the Sorrelian Migration, which, after including the Cumin survivors, was over 800,000. They shared the sensor feed with Benny, Sam and Foxy. Looking at the scope, Benny realized that most of the colony below consisted of machinery and robots. Furthermore, what he saw on the surface wasn’t even half the colony. The entire complex went
- Kingdom of the Weak
519. Scoop
That evening, Benny and Sam left with Tim’s battle group, headed for the nearest Uber States outpost with medicine in the cargo holds. This left only one freight galleon to ferry materials and regretful space miners from the surface to Sky Haven. “It’s going too slow.” Remian decided. “I need to call Raven.” With Mindy busy trading across star systems, Raven had inherited (bought over) her airship fleet and company on the surface. They built more gunships and scout ships than freighters these days, mainly focused on providing recon and fire support to ground forces fighting Undead. But it was those freighters Remian needed now, the bigger the better. “We need them refitted for extreme high altitudes, as high as they can go.” Remian explained. “Also we need them spaceworthy, at least up to low orbit.” “You want our airship freighters to fly into space?!” Raven spluttered. “Yes, but not on their own. I want them to haul cargo and passengers as high up as they can. Around 30km woul
- Kingdom of the Weak
518. We should call Remian
“Relax, I’m not asking you to build them from scratch. You’ll need to remodel a Galleon and a trio of our current Dropships. We do want proper Mech Carriers in the future, but for now, we need to deploy urgently, so we’ll just remodel what we have.” Ermine brought up some projections. “The Mechs in question are going to be Light Walkers, designed and built by J-Armory. Juni’s had a workable prototype for a long time, but it’s never been needed until now. Live testing is scheduled to start in three days. They’re powered by Fusion Cells, the kind that looks like dustbins, so you won’t need to worry about fuel lines, just cell-swapping. You won’t need to worry about replacing the He3 in the Fusion Cells either; spent cells will be sent back to J-Armory for recycling or refueling or whatever it is they do. Same goes for the weapons; Jamie’s J-Arsenal will handle maintenance and replacement and all that. The ship only needs to carry the Mechs, deploy them, and run basic maintenance. Repai
- Kingdom of the Weak
517. Objectives and Objections
They met online the next day. Remian opted out, letting them handle it. Upon bringing up the subject of the Woofers’ request for more aid across different planets… Ermine snorted. “I refuse.” “What?” George stared. “I refuse to help them.” Ermine said stoutly. “I know that you guys all have some sort of savior syndrome, and it’s something that Remian seemed to have passed down from the very beginning, the sort of meddlesome hero complex that has you all trying to save the world at personal cost, but I’m no hero. I’m Tau, and we’re practical survivalists. We simply can’t afford to go around saving everybody. We need all our strength and resources to save ourselves. As for the Woofers, as a collective, they are a Class 5 Star Civilization, a whole class more advanced and stronger than us. They have their own governments and their own fleets. Let the Woofers help the Woofers.” Xiao Yan cut in. “As you say, they are a Class 5 Star Civilization. Since you’re talking about praticality, t
- Kingdom of the Weak
516. Changing Gear
“Go, go, go!” green light flared in the bay of the Dropship as the floor fell away. George and twelve other figures were unceremoniously dumped on the ground nine feet below. They landed with heavy impacts. George staggered, realizing the gravity on this world was at least twice what he was accumstomed to back home. For a moment, he regretted leaving his Frame back on the ship, but they were here to clear the bandits out from a city center, meaning tight spaces, narrow access points, and needing to take care to avoid civilian casualties. Or at least, that was the plan. George and his squad had been deposited on the outskirts of the city, at the very border of a suburban district. “Incoming!” someone yelled. George crouched as something exploded; the ground shook and chunks of dirt flew through the air. “Get to cover! Return fire!” George called, even though he wasn’t entirely sure where the attackers were, exactly. The guys diving behind nearby garages and a public toilet clued hi
- Kingdom of the Weak
514. Out there
Quite predictably, the first of those calls to reach Sorrel II was from their dear friends, the Woofers. Three Paws explained it. [This is from Kelso III. It’s an agrarian world, roughly eighty hours’ flight from here for our fleet. Local gang bosses have titled themselves warlords and suppressed the citizenry with brute force. They take whatever they want, and demand whatever payment they like, on pain of death or torture. Local law enforcement has been completely overrun and even planetary militia couldn’t save the settlements under their control. The best our local paws could do is contain the situation and prevent it from getting worse.] Remian sipped hot coffee. Eighty hours flight for the Woofers Fleet should mean a bit less than seventy for the Tau fleet. “That’s rough. But what’s the point of calling us here to tell us this?” [We can help them. Just one division of your fleet could make a huge difference against these local gangs.] At the moment, the Sorrelian fleet consist
