Chapter 28: Resting and Reorganizing – Part One
Zong Ge coldly snorted and frowned, “There is nothing special about these people. If we were at a port or a tavern, we could recruit the strong there. What value is their loyalty?”
The young man shook his head, “There are too few of us. We need more people we can trust. Although these people are ordinary, they are also easy to recruit. Even if we recruited more people, we’d need to foster trust between them and us again.”
“Having expectations for others not only gives those people an opportunity, but it also gives us an opportunity too. Just as we need to redeem ourselves and long for the empire to give us a chance, is that not so?”
Zong Ge shook his head but didn’t argue back.
He knew the young man had his own outlook on things. Since the latter’s plan was already determined, he would not try to persuade him, as it wasn’t necessary.
To the side, Cang Xu looked pensive.
He was thinking of the Bloodcore.
He had learned of the Bloodcore, Bloodline Purification formation, and other secrets from Zi Di already.
“Zong Ge believes ordinary people are unworthy to cultivate, because does not know about the Bloodcore.”
“With this mystical alchemy technology, we can obtain outstanding cultivation aptitudes.”
“From this starting point, what we need more is trust and loyalty. Only those who prove they have that will be cultivated.”
Cang Xu soon realized the young captain’s words had an implied meaning too.
People worthy of trust…
Giving others a chance is giving yourself a chance…
Was he not speaking of him, a necromancer?
Cang Xu served as a noble steward for many years, and had seen much deceit, treachery, and conspiracy, yet now, he sensed the young captain’s words gave from genuine friendship.
“He believes I am deserving of trust, and is willing to give me, a necromancer, a chance.”
Cang Xu had already seen the truth.
He could guess what the Bloodcore was and what it could do because Zi Di had not purposely hidden it.
If Zi Di had intentionally hidden it, she would have taken advantage of his comatose state to muddy data on the Bloodcore or perhaps asked the tower spirit to destroy all data on the Bloodcore.
Zi Di did not do this, instead she acknowledged Cang Xu’s every conjecture.
“Zi Di must have only did this after discussing it with the captain…”
The Bloodcore’s value and importance exceeded even that of the divine artifacts.
But the young captain and Zi Di wanted to share it. It was evident that of the two, the young captain was the dominant one.
Cang Xu had to admit, the young man was the first he had ever seen with such ambitious magnanimity!
Cang Xu’s heart billowed, but his face remained still, and indifferent.
He followed up the young captain’s words with, “I approve of the captain’s suggestion.”
The necromancer looked straight at Zong Ge, “Furthermore, I wish to supplement his point. We need to treat the wounded, I propose that we have the tower spirit refine some basic medicine.”
They had some treatment scrolls.
The survivors had seized 130 of them from War Merchant’s stock.
But it would be too wasteful to use these scrolls on ordinary people, scrolls were expensive and could only be used once.
Necromancers could not heal, in fact, not many mages had healing spells.
The survivors controlled the tower spirit, elevating their alchemy capabilities substantially, and actually could copy magic and manufacture magic scrolls.
But once again, it was too costly to make.
Not only did making scrolls take materials, but also time.
Furthermore, these magic scrolls had to be used on cultivators.
In comparison, making medical drugs was the more cost efficient option.
Zong Ge looked at his left arm, the wound on it had already been wrapped up tightly.
He asked, “Can we now refine silver level magic medicine?”
He had used a treatment scroll, but it had little effect.
Although the treatment scroll was also silver level, it purely used positive energy and could not permanently mend his injury.
The treatment scroll had too wide an application, its advantage in this meant its precision was comparatively weak.
Zi Di’s voice came through, “To treat your injury, we need materials, we actually have some recipes for magic medicine.”
The magic medicine recipes included in War Merchant’s database were, of course. quality goods.
The young captain replied, “We can buy the materials we need at Snake Rat Island.”
Zong Ge nodded, then sighed, “I hope they have what we need.”
After all, Snake Rat Island was not big.
“Besides magic medicine, we also have some herbal treatments to allocate.” Transmitted Zi Di.
She knew many barbarian race medicinal recipes.
These were even cheaper than magic medicine.
It was too much of an extravagance to give magic medicine to ordinary people.
The barbarian race’s herbal cures were more suitable.
After everything was discussed properly, the five pirate ships docked at the barren island.
Besides the sleeping Da Zhao and his people, everyone gathered together on the beach.
The dragonman youngster looked down at everyone, and after waiting for everyone to settle, he brightly said, “We defeated Rou Zang, but as you can see, shameful traitors have appeared among us.”
“Traitors should not meet an honorable end.”
“Point to the traitors at your side, we shall execute them on the spot!”
Everyone looked at each other in dismay.
Suddenly, one person yelled, “Him, he is a traitor. He attacked us when he betrayed us! He killed my fellow villagers.”
In an instant, the people gazed at them.
The shouting person was a fisherfolk. The middle aged man, red with indignation, was emotionally pointing a finger at a pirate.
The highlighted pirate shamefully took a step back, but a moment later, Zong Ge, playing the role of Shi Qi, barged in like a tiger charging into a flock of sheep, and kicked the pirate into the sand. Soon after, he grabbed the pirate’s neck, and as if pulling a small goat, he dragged the pirate out of the crowd.
The pirate struggled, and despite the hand around his neck, he desperately shouted, “Spare my life, spare me! I will serve you!”
Shing.
Zong Ge suddenly took out his broadsword and ferociously swung it.
The pirate was decapitated, and a fountain of blood sputtered out.
“The death of traitors…should not be pitied.” Zong Ge had an iron complexion, his callous method silenced the crowd with fear.
After a few seconds of silence, a series of voices emerged from the crowd.
One after the other, people offered evidence of betrayers.
A pirate suddenly jumped from the crowd, wanting to escape.
Whoosh.
A crossbow arrow flew out, shooting him dead on the spot.
Everyone was startled, then gazed at where the crossbow arrow had come from.
Lan Zao was standing on a boat, overlooking the scene with both hands on an alchemy crossbow arrow.
“Running away, running away to where? This is a barren island, there are no trees here.” Soon after, playing the role of Old Zhong, Cang Xu emerged from behind Lan Zao and showed his face for the first time.
His body was steeped in a magical aura, making his identity self-evident.
“That’s the Lord Magician from the battle!”
Everyone was intimidated by Lan Zao and Cang Xu.
A few pirates suddenly kneeled to the ground, some wailing in grief, others begging for forgiveness.
But all were cruelly dragged away by Zong Ge and met their end by the blade.
Seeing that neither flight nor begging for forgiveness worked, the remaining pirates began to disavow, falsely accuse, and slander each other.
“Eh? This will be hard to handle.” Cang xu feigned embarrassment.
Seeing this, the disavowing of the pirates grew louder.
“Who is right and who is wrong? Who can prove it?” Cang Xu raised his voice inquisitively.
More fisherfolk stood up.
The situation grew worse for the accused pirates.
“You there, help me, testify for me, I saved your life.” A pirate appealed to his former comrade.
Reluctantly, the pirate stood up to support his accused brethren.
Some pirates were also speaking up, worried that the fisherfolk were growing too powerful and would put them at a disadvantage.
Gradually, the fisherfolk and the pirates began to form two opposing sides, and with their own version of events, quarreled with angrily flushed faces.
The dragonman youngster and Zong Ge remained silent, and calmly watched this happen.
The quarrel was growing more vicious, and soon after, the situation went from cursing to a brawl.
Whoosh.
Another arrow shot out.
A pirate was shot dead where he stood.
Everyone was horrified, and the clamor immediately vanished.
“Don’t be nervous, he was a traitor.” The dragonman youngster said while looking at Cang Xu.
Cang Xu took out an alchemy device and threw it on the beach.
The alchemy device was a rectangular case.
The top of the case opened up, and a magic image shined in the air, displaying a scene of the previous battle to the people.
The scene was detailed and reliable.
Sure enough, the people saw which pirates mutinied and shot the others dead.
They were shocked when they realized everything was under control by Long Fu, Old Zhong, and the others. The previous incident was merely some deliberate indulgence, nothing more.
“Traitors will not be tolerated!” Zong Ge crossed his arms and sneered. He gazed at the deathly pale and despairing pirate traitors.
Zong Ge looked at the pirates who were supporting them, “Thos who harbor traitors are also guilty.”
Those pirates began to drip with cold sweat.
Soon after, Zong Ge beheaded every traitor, then punished the pirates who had blindly supported them.
Some were caned, some were fined, and some were sentenced to do the most exhausting sailor jobs for a time.
Regardless of whether it was fisherfolk or pirates, all were thoroughly intimidated.
They noticed that not only had the survivors managed to repel Rou Zang, but they also had unknowable and mysterious abilities.
This scene was deeply imprinted on everyone’s hearts.
In the future, anyone who wanted to turncoat would weigh these things.
However, the survivors were not done shocking these people just yet.
On the beach, Zong Ge organized them, then started initial training.
Five ships were berthed on the island.
At this time, alchemy puppets appeared.
They were basic maintenance puppets.
There were 8 in total, and Zi Di had deployed 4 of them here.
These alchemy puppets could carry out basic maintenance on the Deep Sea Monster Fish, as well as conduct emergency maintenance and reinforcement tasks.
The basic maintenance puppets were all battery types that consumed magic power. Every so often, they needed the Deep Sea Monster Fish’s magic power reservoir to replenish their energy.
They had a full set of tools, and when carrying out a different maintenance task, they could switch to another alchemy maintenance tool module.
Now some of their arms had disk hacksaws, some had rivet guns, while others had humanoid-like fingers that could grasp planks and rope with extraordinary nimbleness.
The pirates and fisherfolk watched on with wonder.
So, as it turns out, they also had alchemy puppets!”
“They didn’t use their full strength to beat us.”
“When Rou Zang came, they also didn’t dispatch these alchemy puppets.”
The survivors became imperceptibly incomprehensible in their hearts.