Taking out consciousness from a body only took a brief moment. Sharog's body went limp and Ed's hand continued to hold her in place. He stayed like this for a short while as he thought of potential skills to have her develop.
'I should give her something related to wind and mana' There were plenty of skills he could give her from these two categories. The insects he caught tended to have wind skills, and anything else was not lacking in mana skills.
Ed still had to think carefully about this though. He had found no consequence to branding skills as opposed to learning them but that didn't mean none existed.
'I can imagine that forcing this into them with a brand might make it impossible for them to lose their skills' Growing old or out of shape could in theory result in a loss of skill. One might also lose their touch for whatever reason. This sounded like a plus but it was really circumstantial.
'The brain of humans is complex but so should an orc's brain be' The brain always sought efficiency when storing information. Humans tended to forget things that they subconsciously deemed less important to make room for new things. Orcs had no reason to function differently.
Forcing a skill to take a permanent spot in the brains of the orcs might result in lessening their learning capability. It could do that by making them less likely to naturally learn a skill or just by limiting the space available for new skills making it impossible to learn them.
In the end, these were all speculations. As Sharog had stated, she was willing to face any side effects. Ed had no reason to stop even if these turned out to be true. In the worst case, she would be relying entirely on Ed to learn new skills or forget old ones.
'Which does work well for the puppet thing' With a monopoly, even without the commands he would be able to dictate the lives of the orcs.
After sorting his thoughts, Ed finally entered the system space. In here, he started to think about the skills he had stolen thus far.
[<(Winged Beater) Wind Affinity lvl. 0> Skill Ink]
The Winged Beater was a beetle-like bug that well… had wings. It also liked to beat things. To be specific, it beat other bugs to death.
Being so small, it was hard beating things. The winged beater thus needed more speed and it did so by becoming more in tune with the wind. It also had skills like Tough Exoskeleton so that it didn't splatter itself in the process.
Wind affinity seemed like a no-brainer to give to Sharog.
[<(General) Wind Favored lvl. 0> has been branded]
'Huh, a downgrade' The result was a bit disappointing since affinity was not exclusive to insects but Ed didn't protest much. He now knew that level 0 skills had a chance to be downgraded when branding regardless of compatibility and moved onto other skills.
[<(Phantom Maggot) Overlooked lvl. 0> Skill Ink]
[<(Magic Mole) Mana Alcove lvl. 0> Skill Ink]
Ed grabbed two more skill inks to Sharog's consciousness but the results were downgraded. Actually, Overlooked was overlooked when downgrading but Mana Alcove became near pointless.
Mana indentation was a skill that allowed one to store up more mana in small indents. Ed wasn't sure about the logic but he assumed it would store it on the body. Ed wanted to say Sharog was better off without it but there was no real way to take it back.
After adding a couple of movement skills like nimble to Sharog Ed officially called it quits. He exited the system space and found he still had Sharog in his hands. He inserted the consciousness back.
Sharog who had been dazed suddenly appeared to come back to life.
"Wh- What happened?" She asked confused. She felt different but she was still thinking the same things and they were still in the same place.
"How about you go for a couple of laps around using your wind mana?" that was the best way to have Sharog notice she was suddenly much stronger.
Sharog found the suggestion strange but she didn't say anything and exited the house to do just that. Even while exiting her home, Sharog was able to notice how much nimbler she became.
After performing the laps she was able to tell even further how effective whatever Ed had done was.
"This is amazing!" The wind-favored skill even allowed Sharog to cast her spells much better. The wind mana seemed to almost want to be cast as the chants for any spells caused her mana to become excited.
Sharog ended up speeding her chanting and the spells were not any less powerful. They were in fact more powerful.
Sharog had no idea what Ed's whole puppet thing was but her trust seemed to have already paid off.
"Hahaha! Thank you!" Sharog couldn't help but want to jump up and down and run around as she said this. This restlessness did not fit her image but that only made Ed enjoy watching it happen all the more.
It took Sharog over 5 minutes to finally calm down and when she did, she seemed to be flushed red from embarrassment.
"Tha- Thanks again…" She said shyly to which Ed smiled.
"This is something I should do, we are running out of time" The humans would be coming for them and Ed felt it was only a matter of time.
"What do you mean?" Sharog asked confused. The humans might come to attack but the way Ed had phrased things made the situation sound much worse than she thought they were.
"They are setting up a base here" If they allowed the humans to settle down it would only be a matter of time until they were dwindled down and eliminated.
"What?!" Sharog exclaimed. As she had learned from Ed, the humans were outsiders. If they set up a base making it easier for them to be attacked there was bound to be trouble.
There was a vast difference between transporting people from afar and taking from the local populace. The resources spent were much less and the ability to retreat somewhere nearby also helped warriors immensely.
Without a base, the humans would always have to start their invasions from scratch which was ideal for the orcs.
"What are we going to do?" Sharog asked reeling in her surprise. The obvious choice was attacking but even if they mobilized every available orc, victory did not seem likely. It was no longer a matter of battling in an open field but laying siege to a fortification.
No matter how simple or recent this fortification was, it was still harder to fight against. Actually, most of their battles against the humans hadn't even been in a flat field. In terms of pure power, the orcs were at a disadvantage.
"For now I will power up everyone as much as possible" Ed responded. The humans would not attack right away since from what Ed saw, they were only now getting proper supplies.
'I intercepted a cart too' The humans would have to send more in the future. Plus, assuming both carts didn't have entirely different contents, Ed could investigate them to get a better understanding of the base they planned to make.
"The same way that you did for me? Is there no limit?" Sharog asked Ed with a mix of amazement and disbelief. It seemed like Ed could always do everything.
"Yes, the same exact way" It was something that was bound to take a while but Ed had to do it the same exact way. He had to take the consciousness of the orcs one by one and give them the skills one by one. It was horribly inefficient but that was the only option.
Sharog who was thinking deeply about Ed's answer was suddenly interrupted.
"You should go train" Ed suggested causing Sharog to look at Ed. She stared intensively as if trying to find a hidden motive.
All she garnered was that Ed seemed somewhat worried. Was it for her safety? Or for that of the entire Sanctuary? Sharog was not sure.
"I will" But Sharog still agreed to train. Whether Ed asked her to do in order to help herself or the settlement didn't really matter as she would have to train her old and new skills all the same.
"Good. I'll be going then" Ed said planning to visit Dakgu next. He was still training the orcs alongside Gurln per his orders.
'I need information on whom the strongest orcs are' if he by chance didn't have enough time to beef up every orc he would need to at least beef up the stronger ones. To some making the weaker ones stronger also seemed like a viable option but as was Ed's philosophy… no stronger cannon fodder.
He wanted the orcs to qualify to hold back at least one human in groups of two. Currently, the orcs would die in groups of two.
Ed, therefore, hurried over to Dakgu's training field which was just the clearing in front of the smithy. It was also convenient that Ed made a fruit orchard for the orcs to get juicy refreshment and or food.
'After everything is set and done, I will eliminate the humans from here' It was too soon for them to be there. They had to wait up until Ed got a foothold in the mushroom caverns at least.
'W should be doing that for me…' Ed thought while simultaneously wondering what he might be doing.