“Actually, could I get paid in something else instead?” Alex asked.
Tala raised an eyebrow. “In something other than beast cores and sunhearts?”
“Yes,” Alex said. “I should ask you first, what do you do with the blood of the beasts the warriors end up killing?”
“The blood?” Tala seemed confused. “Nothing special I can think of. If the beast has blood, it usually ends up getting cooked along with every edible piece of meat on the beast’s body.”
“You do not particularly care for blood from a beast, do you?” Alex asked. “Because that is what I would like to get paid in. A lot of blood; I’m talking blood from hundreds of beasts.”
“I… cannot say for certain how much blood I could get you, but if that is what you want, I will let the warriors know about it. They might be able to do something about it.”
Alex grinned a little, happy that he was going to get blood for his blood aura. If nothing else, his blood aura would certainly improve a lot thanks to this.
Alex took the storage bag that Tala had brought the new herbs in and went inside to start making more pastes for the city.
While pastes were generally way easier to make than a pill, they weren’t so easy that anyone could just start making them. There were specific ways to make pastes in terms of which ingredients should be crushed together first and in what amount. One could ruin the paste if they weren’t careful about the amount.
That was the entire reason why Alex was needed to make pastes for the city. Even if they knew the herbs involved, they wouldn’t have been able to make the pastes without any mistakes.
With Tala gone, Alex spent the next few hours slowly making pastes while letting his mind wander through the many potentials that hell had to offer him. Things would certainly become so much easier once he broke through the seal fully, but that was for later.
Alex finished making nearly 5 full jars of paste and placed them all in his storage bag, ready to be handed over to Tala when he came by later today or tomorrow.
He decided to spend the rest of the day thinking of ways he could improve his blood techniques, only to be disturbed before he could start. Gorang had arrived as he had said he would, only earlier than Alex expected him to.
He hadn’t realized that apprentice training ended in the afternoon.
“Are you ready to leave?” the man asked.
Alex could only nod.
The two arrived at the chief’s place a few minutes later and were allowed in a few minutes after that. The chief was in his seat, along with his counselors, with a look of curiosity on his face for being called upon.
“It’s curious to see the two of you together. Could Tala not make it?” the chief asked.
“This isn’t something related to trade, Chief,” Gorang said. “We’ve come in regard to something Brother Alex says he’s noticed in our training, especially in regard to our warriors’ battle formation. According to him, we’re using the formation incorrectly.”
“Hah!” one of the counselors, a bald man with a white eye—as though damaged in battle—immediately shouted before the chief could even speak. “Is this why we’ve been gathered? To listen to the words of an outsider who has never even been to the desert? How would someone that is not even a warrior understand the intricacies of our battle formation?”
The chief looked toward the man who had just spoken and sighed. “Rona is not wrong,” he said as he turned toward Alex. “Are you saying that what we’ve been successfully doing for generations upon generations is wrong?”
“Yes. I am saying exactly that, Chief Yulan,” Alex said.
The white-eyed man, Rona, sneered at Alex’s claim. “This bastard dares to shame our ancestors. How dare this Death’s spawn claim that they were wrong?”
“Rona!” the chief shouted at him at that moment. “I am here, and I am listening to the same thing you are listening to. You do not need to burst out every time.”
Rona froze for a moment. “But he dares to claim that our ancestors made a mistake.”
“I never said your ancestors did anything wrong; you made that connection yourself. All I said was that the formation is being used ineffectively. Your ancestors may have used the formation correctly, but over the course of centuries, the battle formation has shifted to one where you’re not making use of its strength.”
“I really do believe you should listen to him, Chief,” Gorang added. “I wouldn’t have brought him here if I saw no merit in his words.”
The chief narrowed his eyes and nodded. “Go on. Explain what mistake it is that you have noticed in our formation.”
Alex nodded and began explaining.
The chief remained silent as he listened to Alex explaining the main intention behind this formation. It was made for everyone who was involved in the battle formation to distract the beast, while one key figure, usually the strongest of them all, would be the one dealing the most damage to the one they were fighting.
However, that key figure had somehow stopped being part of the current battle formation, leaving a vacant spot that hadn’t been filled. Instead, the fighters had adapted to the change by overextending themselves in many spots, making this vacancy hard to notice.
But it was a mistake that definitely needed to be fixed.
The chief remained silent for a long time, thinking through Alex’s suggestion. He looked up at him and said, “I can see what you are going for, and your explanation does make sense to me. But I’m afraid to just change the way that we’ve taught the youngsters to battle. The change could be dangerous for them.”
“Then I have a suggestion,” Alex said. “I hear that many of the female warriors are expelled at the end because they fail to meet the requirements. Why don’t you test the changes with them?”