Re: Tales of the Rune-Tech Sage Chapter 863: Domain Military Expansion Plans

CH0863 Domain Military Expansion Plans

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Alex and Eleanore were no doubt excited about the progress they had made with their research.

With Alex obtaining a working prototype for a method to externally influence Bloodlines with magical glyphs—essentially an artificial Ancestral Marking method—they had successfully obtained a potential control measure for any genetic engineering they would need to perform for their cultivation talent research.

"Although it works, I still need to reiterate it some more," Alex said cautiously. "The next step would be to use the method on a human subject."

"Are you sure you want to do that?" Eleanore asked.

"Well, Orion has simulated the method across multiple variables, and the result is that the microbial drone is safe to use on humans. The actual danger lies in the Rune Tattoos and how they are written to influence the Bloodline.

"In essence, the method itself is more than 90% safe as long as I don’t make a massive mistake in the operational instructions for the Rune Tattoo."

"Okay, I understand—I think." Eleanore replied with a shrug. "Are you going to move on to human testing now or wait until we return to Pangea?"

Alex thought about it for a moment.

"I think I should do it as soon as possible," he replied. Then, as an idea came to him, he added, "There happens to be a project I’ve been delaying which happens to be synergistic with this new method.

"I’ll have to head back to Fonterra to explain it to the person involved, though, and see if they’re interested in taking the risk."

"Who is the candidate? Sister Zora?" Eleanore asked curiously.

"No." Alex shook his head. "The current iteration of the method won’t work for Zora’s Ice Phoenix Bloodline. The best we can hope for is a means of keeping the Bloodline under surveillance via the microbial drone link. The influencing half of the method won’t do much more than what my Siphon Rune is currently doing.

"The candidate I’m thinking of has both their own Bloodline issues and an uncanny acceptance and compatibility with my Rune Tattoos," Alex said with a smile.

"Oh!" Realisation dawned on Eleanore. "That makes sense. You’ll be more likely to catch and correct any issues if they potentially arise if it’s her."

Alex nodded.

"I’ll need to be in Fonterra for a while. Do you need me for anything?" he asked.

"No." Eleanore shook her head. "Not for now, anyway. I’ll let you know if or when I do."

"Understood." Alex nodded.

—

Alex and his Silver Wolf Guard entourage quietly returned to the Fonterra Bastide through the Space Gate hidden in the basement of the Domain Lord’s manor.

Alex met up with Zora and gave her a rundown of the progress of his and Eleanore’s ongoing project, as well as what it realistically meant as a potential measure for her Bloodline situation.

It wasn’t much, but it was another small step forward.

Zora agreed to receive the microbial drone serum. While it wouldn’t do much for her situation, it would give Orion some form of real-time monitoring of the situation.

She watched genially as Alex carefully injected the serum into her arm.

Since he already had some of Zora’s genetic data, Alex was able to use it to improve the operation of the drones.

The drones made contact with Zora’s cell nuclei within minutes. Soon, they were transferring nuggets of data to Orion.

One cursory look was enough to make it immediately clear to Alex just how much stronger and more complex Zora’s Bloodline was compared to the Human-Faced Monkey’s Bloodline.

They shouldn’t even have been mentioned in the same sentence.

It was even worse than comparing a peasant to an Imperial Queen.

Just this ’small’ first trunk of data overwhelmed the processing power Orion had dedicated to the task—one that was over three times more powerful than what had been required to process the monkey’s entire genetic and Bloodline data.

Alex’s second mind had to dedicate five times more processing power specifically to processing Zora’s genetic information, leading to a reduction in the processing power allocated to other tasks.

For instance, it would probably lead to a ten per cent increase in the iteration time for the very method being used to obtain said genetic and Bloodline data.

This essentially confirmed Alex’s suspicions that Zora’s Bloodline was still too complex to be addressed with the current iteration of the method. More improvements needed to be made to the method before that could happen.

Not just the method, in fact. Alex, his Rune Tattoo method, his Rune-Tech platform as a whole—and even Ava—might need to see significant improvements themselves before this was possible.

As always, Zora didn’t care much about the method itself. She only cared about Alex, and now Eleanore, who worked on it on her behalf.

She had only accepted the serum because Alex said it would work, nothing more.

Once the serum was injected and Alex confirmed everything was okay, she stopped thinking about it and returned to her current job of managing the day-to-day affairs of the domain.

Now that Alex was back in Fonterra, he couldn’t immediately head off to do what he had planned to do.

He had to attend some policy meetings with various committees in the domain—the most important of which was perhaps a small War Council meeting.

The meeting was attended by himself, Zora, Saul, and Kavakan to discuss the domain’s plans for an incursion into the outskirts of the Great Berserk Beast Forest, as well as plans to hold the nearby tributary of the Rotbark River, which was now open after Alex used the Tribulation Doppelganger to wipe out the beasts in the area.

With the Berserk Beasts cleared from the area, the river tributary could potentially be used to flank the current extent of the domain with a sufficient naval force. It just so happened that the domain’s current most likely adversary, Marquis Brandford, fielded a respectable naval force—at least amongst the nobility in the region.

The War Council needed to determine whether the domain intended to build a settlement at the river tributary or whether the military needed to deploy troops to hold the river as a military position and prevent a surprise attack from this exposed flank.

Alex would have preferred to build a port town there. However, the domain was already stretched thin by its rapid development drive.

In addition, the domain didn’t yet have the shipbuilding technology, never mind the ships, needed to tame the unruly Rotbark River.

This was unfortunately another one of Alex’s technological blind spots—a blind spot he was eager to eliminate during the upcoming return to Pangea.

Eventually, it was decided that the domain’s military would set up a small river base at the location to keep watch over it.

It was the best compromise they could make at the moment.

"In that case, Bos—my Lord. We will need to increase the recruitment drive within the domain," Kavakan advised.

"That makes sense." Alex nodded. "With the arrival of our new citizens from Mirador, we need to increase our security and defence forces anyway. We might as well use this opportunity to strengthen the number of our domain’s troops."

"Should we maintain the previous ten per cent?" Kavakan inquired.

Due to the development needs, Alex had previously instructed the Domain Army to limit their recruitment to about ten per cent of the population—which was why the domain army’s numbers had been restricted to three thousand.

With the population now projected to have ballooned to a hundred thousand, a ten per cent cap would mean the domain’s army could now number about ten thousand.

Alex turned to Saul to seek his opinion.

Catching the lord’s glance, the Senior Adviser to the War Council spoke. "Traditionally, it is a bit difficult to willingly recruit troops into the domain’s military, especially in a domain like ours which is on the border with the Great Berserk Beast Forest, whose military is expected to see a lot of combat.

"Fortunately for us, this is a period of great morale within the domain. The strength shown by you, milord, and our domain army in both holding off the Berserk Beast tide on our domain and ’protecting’ the civilians from Mirador during their own tide has made many young men eager and willing to join our army.

"I believe we should take advantage of this period of popularity to recruit a higher number of troops. This will save us a lot of effort in the long run as the situation in the domain stabilises."

The old man threw a subtle glance at the Domain Army’s Commander, who also chipped in. "Reports from Lady Udara’s people also say that Marquis Brandford could potentially muster more than fifty thousand soldiers across his sphere of influence. In light of this, I believe we should also shore up our numbers."

Alex looked amused. "I would have thought you wouldn’t care about the numbers. More enemy troops means more people for you to kill, no?"

Kavakan scratched his cheek sheepishly. "Bos—milord, while I and a few of our flag officers might be able to handle such a disadvantage, most of our troops likely won’t be able to.

"Like us, the enemy will also have strong combatants who can keep us at bay, meaning we might have to rely more on our rank and file than we hope. In that case, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be too disadvantaged in numbers as well."

"Of course, that is not to say that I believe our troops are weak. With the training we’ve implemented, and from what we’ve seen of the quality of average troops from the Frontier March—the so-called finest troops in the region—the strength of our individual troops is well above that of any other in the region. I am only being cautious," Kavakan quickly added.

"I understand what you mean, Commander." Alex smiled.

He gave Saul an appreciative nod, as he could see the older man’s influence showing within Kavakan.

While the weretiger was still far from possessing the mentality and thought process of an entire domain’s commander, he was developing into more than just a brute—and showing growth deserving of a flag officer.

"Let’s recruit as many troops as we can at the moment. Ideally, I would like us to reach thirty thousand troops before the end of the year," Alex ultimately decided.

This was a significant demand because it gave the domain military only a few months—less than half a year—to increase its current size to about ten times.

"The relevant ministries will work together with your War Council to make it happen," Zora chipped in.

Once the four had decided on the big picture, the rest was to be handed over to their subordinates to flesh out the minor details.

After about half a dozen or so back-to-back meetings, Alex finally had time to himself to focus on his agenda for returning to Fonterra.

While he settled into his office, someone quietly entered the room without triggering his defensive instincts.

The person walked stealthily behind him, and before he could react...

Hugged him.

***