"My liege, half your troops are in critical condition, you must tend to their injuries and ensure they go to the hospital immediately," said Uriel. "Send the injured to the hospital right away," replied Michael, but then he paused to ask "how do we transport them?" A beam of light then hit the injured troops and they were transported right away. Michael looked up and asked, "Why didn't you tell me you could transport us?"
"I can only transport the injured to the hospital immediately, but for traveling, I need to use an item, like the centaur dropped that was just defeated, it's on the report." Uriel responded and handed a scroll to Micheal to point out the list of items dropped. There was a teleportation bottle on the list among other things. Michael looked over the scroll and noticed the power level on the centaur was more than the amount of power level of all his troops combined. He noticed an uncategorized buff with the power level of null. Michael thought to himself, that must be Uriel. I didn't know if my guide could be killed, but I took a gamble that the system requires an immortal AI to go with me to record all my whereabouts. I wonder if others have discovered this already. Either way I should probably keep this quiet before the administrators become aware and set additional rules. He scanned for experience points and saw 25k added to his arsenal. At the very bottom it showed the loot from the boss. A box of stones for armor, thousands of coins for first reward and kill, a bow. Michael handed the scroll back to Uriel and said "destroy this." The scroll turned into ashes right away.
"My liege, how did you know the minotaur would be defeated?" asked Arthur. Michael paused before answering . He wondered if this was a script or it was an admin asking him through Arthur. After debating and thinking it would be too soon for them to see anything odd, he replied, "I didn't, I took a gamble on it."
Michael gave a breath of relief before he asked for a troop count and health stats. He then requested Uriel to give him a health stat of himself too. He noticed that Uriel had no damage which made him smile because Uriel can be his trump card during battle.
They kept hunting monsters until Uriel pointed out that Michael's stamina was almost fully depleted. Michael then looked at the map they had explored and marked it. "How long before we return to the village?" he asked Uriel as he walked towards Thunder. "You will have to regain some stamina before we can move back. Traveling also takes up stamina." replied Uriel as he showed Micheal's condition and his armies. Michael then flashed a smirk on his face. He walked to his troops and pricked each one that wasn't injured including himself. "Send all the injured to the hospital. In a flash, everyone was back in the village hospital except Thunder. Michael frowned, I was sure that Thunder would be with me too since he is my travel companion. Uriel spoke up as if reading his thoughts, "Thunder is back in the stables, he can't be in the hospital, but will teleport to the stables."
Later that evening, Michael sat in his study looking over his reports and thinking about how to allocate the experience points. He decided to start doing the math so that the points were distributed in a power pyramid shape. In war we send out the foot soldiers first. I need to divide them into different types before our next outing; calvary, archers, ground and siege. After reviewing his charts, training grounds and his troop count, he made his decision on how many troops will be in every squad. He went to sleep still thinking of how many more troops he can afford to recruit and still make progress on the castle reinforcements.
Michael woke up after 4 hours of sleep thinking of everything he needed to get done assuming that other players were already ahead of him. This was a power game after all, the strongest ones rule and make up the rules. He checked the current stats of the castle and troops. Looks like I need to split my forces and send them to the academy, then rotate them after each new level. He saw the cost of sending half his army to the academy. It was almost all of the earnings from the prior day's work. With a sigh he said, "whomever has the money to fund war wins I guess." Then he took a deep breath before summoning Uriel to his office. "My liege, how may I serve you," said Arthur as he bowed. "I prefer Chief-Commander or just Commander and I want you to take half the army and send them to the academy. Have them return only when they surpass 10 levels with the other knight commanders. The rest of the troops will alternate after every level they reach." Michael said without looking up from his documents. "I also need to hire more troops at the basic tier level that will replace the amount of troops in the academy." "Yes my liege." responded Uriel as he walked out the office.
Uriel was in the room the entire time, standing behind the curtain, last night that Micheal had to ask him to wait outside of the room because he needed to think without being distracted by being constantly watched. Michael thought, "It's an uneasy feeling being watched like that. As long as the creators don't interrupt me as I'm trying to also figure out a way back. Then I think I can overlook the creepiness."
After going over the numbers, Michael decided he needed to use Uriel during every boss battle to get ahead faster. A few more bosses won't be noticed Michael thought. It's probably too low for it to matter at the moment. He had already noticed the improvement of the troops from yesterday. Michael and his army ended the night fatigued. He did the same thing as he did the first time. The entire army was transported to the hospital.
"My liege hospital has reached its max capacity. Please expand your hospital," said Uriel. Michael looked at the report and noticed a squad of 20 missing. Then said "activate, expand the hospital. Where is my squad now?"
Uriel replied "They could not be transported and are marked as deserters."
Then Michael asked, "Can I recover them now?"
Uriel answered,"You can only recover a percent of your deserters using a loyalty horn that is found in the market"
Michael furrowed his eyes and asked,"how often can I use the horn?"
Uriel responded, "Each horn can only be used once."
Michael let out a sigh and stated, "I need to hire the same amount of troops we did this morning"
Uriel replied,"Yes my liege"
Then with a serious tone Michael ordered,"Have them go to the academy at once"
Uriel answered, "Yes my liege"
My numbers are not balanced out anymore, but this is expected as more troops get lost by war or raids. Now I need to check the bulletin to see who has the highest power in the ranks and how to join an alliance. Michael made his way to the market to look at the rankings. As expected, there's already a few alliances and some powerful players, now that I have an idea of who is out there I can plan. Michael went through the information of each alliance and stopped at Dark Warriors. It's not the most powerful, but its intro sounds reasonable. Michael submitted his application and was accepted. Then soon a popup screen showed messages between the alliance members. There was barely any conversation on how to get organized or plan. The leader kept posting, "everyone has to get stronger." Michael placed his notifications on silence. He thought, "perhaps I should stay silent for now and see where I can go next if this doesn't work out."
Michael returned to his quarters and took a bath. He was thinking that perhaps expanding his army would give him the appearance of being strong, but for how long? He was just about to get some rest before he noticed fire outside his window.
"My liege, our city is under attack," He heard Uriel yell through the door.
"Where are the troops on guard?" asked Michael as he got up.
"They were too weak to defend" answered Uriel as he opened the door.
"What are they sending against my ground?" asked Michael.
"Calvary my liege" replied Uriel as he pointed at the horses.
"Of all the troop types" said Michael as he snapped his fingures.
Michael quickly checked his arsenal and found a shield item to cast over his city and used it right away. The force field expanded from his room and blasted the enemy back and outside his territory.
"How many dead?" Micheal asked.
"None my liege" replied Uriel.
"How is that possible?" asked Micheal bewildered.
"You expanded your hospital, the hospital can hold the capacity of your current army" responded Uriel.
"Battle report" demanded Michael so he could see for himself.
A scroll appeared in Michael's hands. Attacker was from Alliance For The Good by Expatriate. His power level was ten times his. Only 30% of resources were taken before they got blasted. Michael looked over at the fire being put out by the rest of the villagers and mumbled, Just wait Expatriate.