Untamed Lands- Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1

The upgrade to B grade had occurred two weeks ago and yet, I was still getting used to it. The change was bigger than I had expected. Gaining thirty-nine in each of my physical stats in a single instant took some adapting to.

It was hard to say for sure, but this really felt like a bigger change than when I had first become a body cultivator. This new body of mine was beyond what I had thought was possible. I continued to eat, even though the notification had said that I didn’t have to.

Some habits are hard to break and well, Lina was just such a damn good cook that I didn’t want to give up eating her meals. The new clerks she had hired were also all trying their best to get noticed for cooking me a meal I just couldn’t live without. She wouldn’t own up to it, but I was pretty sure she was promising any clerk who cooked me something I asked for seconds of got a slot in my schedule.

So far, that had led to me bedding two of the new clerks with the others all eager for a turn. That wasn’t a bad fringe benefit of my position. I honestly think I would have been content with the attention of my wives, but I had agreed to live by Olimeran standards and so I sacrificed myself and did my duty.

A grin burst out on my lips. I couldn’t even think that without laughing. The only rule I had insisted on was that all non-wives had to be taking precautions, so to speak. As much as my bunnygirl wife loved babies, she hadn’t complained about that rule. It probably helped that both Mursha and Daria had gotten pregnant the night I had married Mursha.

Jo-Jo didn’t want a baby yet. She was still eager to attend the tournament which I had promised to take her to. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t excited to fulfill that dream for her. I still had some issues to deal with at home before we could leave, but there was time.

This, of course, meant that two of my five wives were pregnant and of course, Lina was busy with our son, Robbie. He was growing faster than a human, but slower than what they had expected, judging from comments. He was already moving around far more than I would have expected at his age.

The odd woman out in this equation was Rava. My elven wife was not only my alchemist and the manager of all our family’s business interests, but she was also well over one hundred years old. She insisted that shouldn’t keep her from getting pregnant, but despite repeated attempts, she hadn’t gotten there. It certainly wasn’t for lack of effort on either of our parts.

Again, the B rank body was capable of going all day and all night. I was able to live merely by absorbing ambient mana. I found that a few hours of meditation every day was still very beneficial. I didn’t get physically tired without the meditation, but I definitely got cranky. Mental freshness was as important as physical.

I had even noticed that this more powerful body had an increased libido. Then again, maybe that was a supply and demand issue. My supply and their demands had increased, and my body was responding to that. Whichever it was, I was continuing to learn.

It had actually taken me two days to realize that despite still eating I no longer produced waste product. Apparently, my body could not metabolize or otherwise dispose of everything I ate or drank without ever needing to answer nature’s call. It was truly unnatural and initially freaked me out more than I would have expected.

Training continued with at least eight hours a day, committed to getting stronger. With all my stats over one hundred now, upgrades were coming slower. That didn’t mean that the team wasn’t doing their best to push me.

Every day, I spent at least an hour training in weapons with Denne, Josie, and Daria. Both my melee and ranged combat skills continued to progress. The same could be said for my alchemy. They all progressed faster than my stats now, but it wasn’t just my stats which were stalling out.

I had made no progress on my cultivation level despite setting aside time each day for it. My body was powerful, my core much larger, yet I couldn’t seem to make any further change to it. The last notification had said that I would need to form a mind core in order to progress to A rank.

I still didn't have any idea what a mind core was, but I wasn’t giving up. It was simply easier to focus on the things I could control. With that in mind, I had another alchemy lesson planned this afternoon. I’d have to go into the Untamed Lands soon to gather ingredients for new types of potions both for myself and Rava.

Not that she didn’t have plenty to teach me still with standard ingredients it was more that I wanted to keep her mind off of her inability to get pregnant. I did enjoy that every alchemy lesson eventually devolved into more practice, but I wanted to get some rare ingredients to capture her imagination.

For now, I was simply on patrol. A morning of training and a hearty lunch had me feeling good. Walking down the streets of Yonderton was vastly different from when I had first arrived. The first day I rode into town, I had been certain that everyone I saw was ready to kill me.

Smiles were all that greeted me now. I won’t say that there was no crime now. That would have been foolish, but providing housing and jobs went a long way to changing that. Patrol was more about being seeing by the people each day. My presence seemed to encourage them.

I glanced over at the two deputies with me. Josie insisted that I still needed someone around me. It was fair, so I honored her request as Mistress of the Wall, or head of my personal security if I was going to use an Earth term. I was stronger than anyone around me now, but I’d learned my lesson on two fronts.

First, I’d promised to follow Olimeran standards and that meant allowing my wives to take on their roles. Other than the orcs, all of the races tended to have more of a female led society but that only made sense with the gender disparity. Hell, the orcs denied it, I was pretty sure that even my friend Mactosh still had his wives running a great deal of his life.

Second, there were still threats. The Cult of the Raven had a presence and one of my deputies occasionally caught a glimpse of their people. Nimeera and Nogia were both around. I didn’t know what they were up to. Nimeera had proven herself to be something more than an ally and something less than an ally.

I’d even gotten a quest from Korkanis, god of shadows, which promised that if I swore my allegiance to him that he’d give me all sorts of boons including Nimeera and Nogia. I didn’t really know who Nogia was, but I already had some shadow in me and Rava was a former adherent of the Cult of the Raven. So, it wasn’t like I was completely opposed, I just wanted things to happen on my terms. Even if I did like the way Nimeera walked.

The real threat was Her. She was supposedly a servant of Old Scratch, or in other words the devil. I knew enough now to realize that my understanding from Earth about these beings called gods here was dead wrong on so many fronts. They were neither all-knowing or all-powerful. In fact, they seemed to be more akin to scheming Greek gods complete with their own foibles. Yet, they also were very real and something I would have to deal with eventually.

Her though was a very present threat. She was powerful enough that I felt like she had only toyed with me before. I was stronger now, but still had no idea if that was enough. And she called herself a demon, so she couldn’t be up to any good. Of course, the idea of a succubus came with all kinds of imagining.

The two newest deputies were still adjusting to the idea but they seemed very competent. The best or worst part depending on how I thought about it was that like Denne and his wives they were already a couple. Freina was a wolfkin speed mage. Her mana enabled her to make things go faster or slower. She had a quick wit and from what I’d seen hints of a quick temper. That was fine as long as she could do her job.

Her husband was the opposite of her in just about everywhere. Whereas Freina had a slight build and preferred ranged weapons, Marko was a cowkin and preferred to get up close. He had a heavy staff that he could use, but in our training sessions so far he preferred hand to hand combat. That suited me just fine because I needed more practice with that anyway.

He was also very even tempered. He seemed to have good instincts so far, and that made up for an intellect that wasn’t razor sharp. Again, his ability with Earth Mana helped play a part in deciding to hire these too. They matched each other well and I was going to let them start going on patrols on their own soon.

Today was the last patrol I was taking with them. We had just passed the latest batch of houses that my construction teams had built. Since turning over the purse strings to Rava she had worked with my city manager, Rozelle to add even more workmen. They were bound and determined to grow Yonderton.

This just meant that we had the slums left to patrol. Calling it the slums was kind of an exaggeration. Yonderton wasn’t that large even after I had spent merits to expand the city. This just happened to be the four blocks which had been most resistant to change. Many ranch hands would come into town from the outlying areas and this is where they went.

That was to be expected since both the brothel and the lowest priced bars were located here. It was everything a man who worked seven days a week herding animals might want with his few days away.

I spun my core just a bit faster as we started to walk into this part of town. The smiles were absent now. It wasn’t that we didn’t offer to help the people here; it was just that you can’t help the unwilling. Addicts will generally stay addicts whether their addiction is drink, drugs or violence. At least drugs didn’t seem to be much of a problem.

The orc who came flying out a window from one of the bars proved that violence was still very much a thing. Another orc jumped out after him. This one was wearing higher quality armor and had the appearance of a fighter rather than a ranch hand.

He yelled at the fallen orc, “Shut your trap and don’t speak about your betters like that.”

The man on the ground looked like he worked at one of the surrounding ranches based upon his attire. He was rubbing his jaw right up until he spat back, “If you are supposed to be some bad ass mercenary then why do you hit like a girl. I’ve had a hog bump me harder than that just trying to get to its slop.”

He got to his feet while the mercenary started closing with him. Another pair of orcs in matching armor came out the door. One of them called out, “Brenson, stop it. It isn’t worth it for some hick farmer. I’ll buy the next round.”

The first armored orc shook his head and said, “No can do, captain. No one speaks about the Iron Shield like that.”

The ranch hand scoffed, “Iron Shield, my ass. I heard you all got trashed by bandits in Westerton. Don’t worry though. We need someone to muck out the stables. You might be smart enough to sweep shit. Just remember to use the broom not your hands.”

Whether because of drink or because that had hit a sore spot the armored orc reached for the shorts sword strapped to his waist. Fists were one thing, blades something else, but I smiled. I needed an excuse to take B rank for a spin outside of training.