When those five woke up, Luke was already facing the next five, but they didn't do much better than the first. Once the spars ended, Luke said that as punishment for not landing a single hit on him, they are to leave the mountain and only return after defeating and carrying a Salamander to the entrance of their hideout. That would make them do that exercise and help Luke in increasing the size of his skeleton army.
For some reason, they didn't even try to protest. Once those ten left, Luke put the newcomers to endure the first phase of his training regime… and then selected ten others to spar with him. That continued for a while until someone decided to complain, and they were the earthlings…
"I know that you are preparing for future actions, but wouldn't it be better to put all the elves before you start any training?" Amanda asked.
"And in the meantime, those who are here do nothing and wait?" Luke asked. "I need to make these guys to become more useful than my skeletons and I need that for yesterday. Besides, I told you before, I am going to give Rina some time to rest and clear her mind."
"I don't need time to rest… we can go and look for the others right now…" Rina said while forcing a smile.
"I can hear the motivation in your voice… it is giving me goosebumps," Luke said. "Regardless, like I said, we will rest for a few days, besides, we don't have to hurry now that we can use the castle. On foot it would take two to three weeks to find five groups, but with that one, we can do it in less than one. So, even if we take it easy for a week, it will be fine."
It was hard to believe that Luke was saying that he was already over level 170, after all. Besides, he never stays still for long. They thought that the only way to become strong was to kill monsters…
"Anyway, since you brought these guys here, why didn't you bring Jennifer and those that worked with her?" Luke asked.
"They said that unless they are able to come by using their own strength, it means that their partners aren't ready," Luthi said.
"What about Danielle?" Luke asked. "I can't see her letting go of the opportunity to go to another world."
"I wasn't planning to offer a dark elf to our world, so I didn't invite her," Luthi replied. "She also was too busy looking after your tamed monsters."
"Man, you sure have balls to say that in front of me," Luke furrowed his eyebrows. "I suppose I will have to reward her for her hard work… even though she probably likes what she is doing."
Maybe Danielle will like to use the newborn monsters of the other species… while it is a lot of work, she probably will also like to look after the first kid of Pilaswine.
During three days, Luke stayed in the base, training the elves. After three days, those who failed at attacking him began to make some progress and landed some hits. He nodded at that since they caused some damage… they were strong, but after fighting for years where only they suffered defeats, they had lost their edge, in a sense. Like they didn't think that they could win against an opponent much stronger, even if they had a good plan in mind.
After those three days, Rina looked a bit better, so Luke decided to take the most promising elves, and then they left on the ice castle. Rina controlled it, and then she stopped on the groves where the skeletons were hidden. In each of those forests, he left five elves.
"I gave them the order for them to follow your orders, they will offer you back while you hunt the monsters in the area," Luke said. "You can keep hunting as much as you want or until the skeletons die, it is your choice."
The skeletons were at level sixty, and since they were all mages, they wouldn't die so easily. At first, the elves hesitated, but then they soon got used to it.
"It seems Luke is passing his weird hobbies to others…" Celia said while smirking.
"What hobby?" Luke frowned.
Celia looked away while smirking. In any case, Luke repeated that until all the fifty elves had some skeletons under their command. While Luke's group was flying toward the last part of the Northern lands, he confirmed that they were working pretty hard… the notifications were coming pretty much every minute.
You obtained 25 experience points.
You obtained 25 gold coins.
You obtained 25 experience points.
You obtained 25 gold coins.
…
"Man… this is quite something," Richter said while he was sitting on the border of the walls of the castle and watching the lands passing below them.
Amanda was pretty far away from the border. It seemed that she was afraid of heights… despite that, she also was enjoying the sight. Every single one of them wasn't taking Luke's work seriously. Still, when Rina informed that they were getting close to the first shelter, they prepared themselves for a fight… However, they didn't find any enemy aside from a high number of monsters around the area. That part of the world had many mountains, so the elves created their houses in a part that was always covered in fog, mist, or the clouds. Regardless, the inhabitants panicked when they saw the ice castle approaching, but everything was solved when Rina showed herself. As usual, they bent their knees and congratulated her for her hard work and for getting a minion that had such a vehicle… that minion was Luke. As for the other humans, they assumed that they were her servants.
"They are quite the easy bunch…" Shalia said.
"I couldn't agree more…" Luke nodded.
Since they could use such a massive vehicle, the elves got carried away and decided to bring a lot of things with them. Luke didn't know if that would make the castle consume more mana, but at least once they began to climb the mountain while carrying their things, they would learn their lesson…