Karl didn’t miss the envious glances that the other students were casting at his fort when he came down with the others for dinner, or the gossip about the features that they had added inside, which sounded much more grand than the actual interior of the silk fort.
It was more of a suspended tent than the palace that they made it out to be, but compared to their rooms at the Academy, the canvas tents with fifty students packed inside were no luxury hotel.
The fort was much less crowded, and they actually had room to spread out when they were getting ready in the morning. The tents were so packed that you had to either take turns, or equip your armour while laying in bed if you had a bonded set.
Many of the others didn’t have a bonded armour set, as it was prohibitively expensive for the average student, and not well worth the resources that they could have bought instead.
Their growth rate was normally the priority for all of the Golden Divine Academy students. Karl was just an exception to the rule, and from what the others could tell, his group was either enjoying the benefits, or they had all gained significant opportunities in the recent past.
“Do you think that they will be back tomorrow?” One of the students asked as Karl and the others were taking a seat at the table next to him with their trays.
“I guess. They’re still close enough that the artillery is firing at them, so they must come back pretty often.” The other student at his table replied.
“Oh, we can ask this teacher. Commander, do you think the Hill Giants will charge again tomorrow?” The boy asked.
It took Karl a moment to realize that they were talking about him. His back was turned, and he was in armour, so they hadn’t realized he was a student.
Karl turned around with a smile. “Well, you got the Rank right. But I’m no teacher. However, I can say that the chances are they will launch at least a small attack every day, even if it’s just to test our lines. The Giants are relatively smart. Smart enough to know that if we start to slack off, we will leave vulnerable spots in the defences that they can use to get to us.”
“So, something like today will happen every day?” The boy asked.
“I take it you got here very recently? This was a smaller attack. It only lasted ten or fifteen minutes, and the enemy retreated with most of their force intact. That’s just a probe to see how we’re doing with our defences. I attacked forward into the lines to throw them off balance, so they didn’t think that we were too predictable, and that was all it took to make them back off.” Karl explained.
Tessa wagged a finger at him. “It’s not nice to lie to people. You attacked into the lines because you thought it would be fun.”
“Maybe a little because it was fun.” Karl agreed.
The other students sitting around them chuckled, and a few of them discussed what they had seen when Karl and the warriors had charged into the lines.
That was drawing even more students into the discussion, those who had been on Karl’s side of the line during the attack and had managed to see something through the [Blizzard] attack that Remi had been using to reduce visibility.
“I tell you, it was like a whole army rolled into the Giants, man. They just marched through the attack, cutting down everything like it didn’t matter there were Commander Rank Giants there.” One of them was telling his team.
“There is half the Academy here, how much difference could three more make?” One of the other students asked.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought, and then suddenly there was a three-metre tall Werebear and a bunch of Giant Spiders, and that maul tossing around Hill Giants like they were dolls. I tell you man, Commander covers a huge range of power compared to Ascended.” One of the others insisted.
That was actually true. Commander Rank went for a much wider range of power than Ascended because the bottleneck wasn’t just a number but a qualitative change.
Before that, the lines were somewhat vague, but Commander to Royal was a very distinct cutoff, and once you were past the bottleneck, you would make a huge step-up in power, leaving a gap between Royal and Commander that wasn’t easy to bridge without the assistance of magical devices or some sort of cheat.
Karl chuckled. “I have class skills that increase size, strength and speed by nearly half, including bonuses that will double skill damage, and add secondary damage of a different type than the main attack. Even compared to other Commander Rank Elites, I do a lot of damage.”
“Are you like the World Dragon’s cousin or something? What sort of unfair advantage is that when you’ve already got three Commander Rank Monsters with you? Wait, does that apply to all of them as well?” One of the other students asked.
Karl chuckled. “It’s primarily for them. The fact I can use it is just a little bonus.”
Ophelia laughed. “He says that, but he shoots arrows with Commander rank Chain Lightning on them until his arms get tired.”
One of the kids pointed at Karl. “I saw that. In the snow, I saw Chain Lightning.” That was actually Remi, for the most part, but Karl nodded in acceptance that was related to him.
One of the teachers gave Karl an intrigued look. “With the power that you have amassed, do you have any alternate ideas on how best to keep the Hill Giants under control?”
[We could make them part of a new art exhibit.] Rae suggested helpfully.
Karl could only imagine the level of horror that the students would have if they saw what Rae called an art installation. But it would likely dissuade the Hill Giants from coming anywhere near them.
“I can think of a few ways, but I’m not certain how viable they would be as a long-term deterrent. We could try to terrorize the Hill Giants into backing away from the border, but eventually, they would likely come back with even larger numbers and that would be a real mess.
We could try thinning their numbers as well, and I saw the numbers from the Frost Giant front, where they were summoning more Giant clones to fight. If the Hill Giants aren’t cloning themselves with magic, they might not win a war of attrition.” Karl suggested.
“A war of attrition? Doesn’t that imply that we can kill more of them than they do of us?” The boy at the table next to Karl asked.
“That’s right. It’s not the best option, but If we can eliminate even fifty to one, we should be able to crush their population to the point that they simply can’t attack.”
The other students looked at him like he had just said the dumbest thing they’d ever heard, and Karl felt the need to defend his idea. “We were only on the Frost Giant border for one month, and my team killed well over a thousand. Given even three months, I don’t see why the lot of us couldn’t do it.” He explained.
The teacher sighed. “When you put it that way, it sounds so reasonable. But that’s simply impossible for most of us. Unless you’re going to single-handedly wipe out an entire town, that math doesn’t work out for those of us who are at less exaggerated power levels.”
From the far side of the room, Morgana laughed. “You’re not going to get to play that much on this front. You’ve got classes to take, rotations along the line, and even rest days in your future.” The Witch Doctor informed him, but with the intent to encompass his whole group.
“Rotations on the line? Seriously?” Karl asked. “Most of the defensive tactics aren’t a pike wall, that’s just for slowing the charges. You will get used to fighting in a larger group soon enough. Besides, you’re with Colonel Wilkes, and he summons Fire Elementals. I think that him and Hawk might become good friends after a few fights together.” Morgana replied with a smirk.
[Fire Elementals? Like Magma Elementals, but all fire? That sounds neat.] Hawk agreed.
“Alright, we aren’t quite Feral yet. We can play well with others.” Karl reluctantly caved under Morgana’s demanding stare.
“I’ll believe that when I see it. Don’t forget, I’ve met your nature priestess.”
Lotus laughed and waved, knowing that Morgana couldn’t see her sitting behind Ophelia.
“Oh, there she is. Good evening Lotus.”