Chapter 111 - War Slaves
-This chapter was sponsored by Unknown (San Francisco, US) and Grzegorz S (Poland).
With shining eyes Zhao said, "This is something we should test, right? Grandpa Green, shouldn't the undead be able to do what you just said too?"
Green's eyes also brightened as he nodded. "Master, we must immediately go to the Iron Mountain castle where there are some spirit beasts we left behind. Let's see if it's effective."
Zhao agreed, and with a thought, he, followed by Green and Meg, traveled to the teleport point in the castle square.
They didn't find Meirin in the living room, nor did they find Rockhead and Blockhead there. They must be busy. At the castle, there were a lot of things to do. In addition to planting alfalfa seeds on the mountain, they were also preparing to plant oil fruit seeds.
Alfalfa seeds had been planted on the mountain and would one day become fertilizer, turning the soil so that other species of plants could be planted. And what they decided to plant next was oil fruit seeds. These seeds had been modified by the space so that it didn't have its weakness of being susceptible to pests. Of course, they could have just gotten rid of any pests with pesticide, but they feared that this would just add poison to the crops.
As well as planting these seeds, the slaves were also doing other jobs like repairing the castle. It was easy to see that there were still many places that needed rehabilitation. It was a big job.
Fortunately, some of the undead were able to help. If a person couldn't lift something, then let the undead do it. To cope with this job, Zhao had deliberately left a hundred humanoid undead in the castle, while the remaining two hundred men were left defending the Stony Mountain estate.
So now, to help out the slaves and keep them safe, there were one hundred humanoid undead and four hundred undead spirit beasts wandering around the castle, guarding it in case someone tried to sneak in.
While Zhao was in the living room, he sent out a message to all of those undead to meet him outside the castle.
After this happened, Ann, who was working with the slaves to repair the castle, saw the undead mages nod to each other, and then they started walking out of the castle. As for the four hundred undead spirit beasts that were patrolling around the mountain, they all started converging together in one location.
All these undead soon went up to Zhao. Once all the undead had gathered, Zhao waved the ghost staff in his hand and said, "Phalanx."
Those undead immediately lined up in neat rows until they formed a square formation. Zhao couldn't help but nod his head before waving the staff again. "Move!"
The phalanx slowly began to move, but there was no mess within the formation. It stayed as neat and sharp as a knife. With Zhao's command, they all started moving faster and faster, but the formation remained in its box shape. No one moved too quick or too slow.
Green grew excited watching all of this. For their clan, this was a windfall. These undead could really march in a formation that didn't break into chaos, forming a cavalry. This was really important. With a cavalry, what would there battles be like? Thinking about it was exciting.
Zhao continued with changing the formation. Once he had an understanding of what this feature could do, he let the undead loose to go about their business, then he followed Green back into the living room.
After Zhao and Green sat down, Meg took the initiative to make them two cups of tea. Green was still excited as he said, "Master, this feature is really useful. As long as we have this, not only will the Buda clan have a cavalry, it will be the best cavalry in the world. This feature is able to maximize the abilities of what a cavalry is supposed to do."
Zhao nodded. Although he had never been in an army before, nor was he ever in a battlefield, he was a fan of things about the military. In his past life, he would frequently watch tv programs about warfare. In the era of cold weapons, before guns and cannons, a well trained cavalry represented absolute power.
If the Buda clan had such a powerful cavalry, then no one in this world would dare to move against them.
In this world, the strongest experts were those at the ninth level. They were so powerful that they could be compared to nuclear weapons back on Earth. However, ninth level experts weren't so easily sent off into a battlefield. They acted more like deterrents. If a clan wasn't suffering from a life or death situation, they would generally not send out their ninth level experts.
Most of the time, these experts would concentrate on closed door cultivation, trying to understand the laws of heaven. They hoped to make a breakthrough to the tenth level. Everyone believed that when you reached the tenth level, you would be among the realm of the gods and become a deity.
For this reason, almost all of the ninth level experts would focus their efforts on cultivation and ignore everything else. Gaining immortal life and becoming invincible was their goal.
So under normal circumstances, you wouldn't see any ninth level experts on the Continent. It was even rare to find eighth level experts sent out to battle. In other words, when it comes to the power of a clan, the most important thing was their soldiers.
In the Continent, the nobility were allowed to have private soldiers, especially in their fiefdoms. As long as you paid your taxes to the Empire and you didn't launch a rebellion, you could keep raising more private soldiers. The king would generally turn a blind eye to this because, after all, these great noble clans have existed for so long that even if the king wanted to control them, he would be powerless to do so.
Most importantly, some of these nobles had ninth level experts behind them. Even if their expert didn't do anything and just acted as deterrents, no one would dare underestimate them.
The Buda clan was banished because of this reason. Their power was too thin. Although they had two eighth level experts, Green and Meirin, that wasn't the same as having a ninth level expert that could protect them from being destroyed.
But if the Buda clan had the most powerful cavalry on the Continent, then no one would dare do what they like against them. Even the king of the Aksu Empire wouldn't easily be able to lay his hands on them.
Green still had a look of excitement even as he said, "But a lot of the undead aren't suitable for riding. See if Drunk and those black mages can catch any large, high level spirit beasts from the carrion swamp, then we would have a lot of beasts to ride and set up a cavalry with."
"Yes, but now we not only lack spirit beasts, but also trained soldiers," Zhao said.
Green's face sank. "Ah, yes, unfortunately we have no one with cavalry training. It seems like this plan must be put off for the long term."
"Never mind. We can just build up a cavalry slowly. There is time. As long as we do some business with Laura, with the support of more gold, we will eventually be able to set up a cavalry."
"It seems that's the only way." Green nodded. "Once we make more money, we can buy some more slaves, and maybe even some war slaves that we can set up a cavalry with."
War slaves were defeated soldiers who had been relegated into slavery. Such people had good fighting skills, there were even those who were warriors at the fifth level. However, their prices were very high. Common slaves could be bought for around ten gold coins, while war slaves had a minimum price of one thousand gold coins. There were even some that were so expensive they had a high price of ten thousand gold coins.
When it came to common slaves, slave owners would generally only feed them things like moldy rice, but that was not so for slaves with military skills. War slaves were generally treated very good, with some even having better living conditions than free commoners. This was the difference between common slaves and war slaves.
It could be said that now it would be impossible for the Buda clan to buy a war slave even if they spent all of their money. To form a cavalry with war slaves, they would need a lot more gold.
In the eyes of those wealthy nobles that had millions of gold coins, the Buda clan was almost like beggars.
Translator Notes: When this chapter mentioned that ninth level experts can be compared to nuclear weapons, I was really skeptical. But then I thought of Rory from that JSDF Gate novel, and I realize that with just an axe, she was definitely powerful enough to wipe out a city of people.
Random Notes: Often times strange things would pop into my mind, and I feel like I should share it with the world. So since I have your attention, I will now occasionally add random notes at the bottom of a blog post that has nothing to do with this web novel. Enjoy!