( Cervantez's POV )
Almost immediately after arriving at Silverpine Town, Cervantez called for a small meeting with local figureheads while the rest of the guild settled into their new headquarters.
The Town's Keep, which was their new base of operations, was a structure big enough to house over 5000 soldiers, however, in-case those soldiers were not permanently residing inside and were only visiting, the Keep could host up to 15,000 individuals at once, which was more than enough for the DarkSky guild's current requirements.
In the meeting with the local heads, Cervantez introduced Luke and other important members of the guild like Tor, Tony and Cola to the locals, while he committed the roles and posts handled by the locals currently to his memory, while talking in depth about the general position of their departments.
Cervantez was pleased to know that currently, the crime rate in the Barony was at an all time low, with unemployment also being under 3%.
Since there was always a shortage of workers at the mine's, even those who were unemployed could work for a day at the mine's to get a fixed salary and use it to feed their bellies for a couple days.
This meant that there was no-one inside the Barony that was dying of hunger currently, while due to high levels of public hygiene, infections and diseases were also under check.
According to the reports narrated by the various local heads, the general population seemed to be pretty happy living within Silverpine and their loyalty and dedication towards Duke James seemed to be very high.
When asked about the biggest problem that they faced? Most pointed out menial issues such as beast attacks on lone townsmen from surrounding woods, or how the local horse breeding industry was not robust enough to fulfill demand for wagon pulling horses.
Overall, Cervantez realized that the Barony that he had acquired was like an ideal paradise and that working here was going to be a joy.
On the very first day itself, Cervantez presented his plan to the locals regarding how he wished to increase the production capacity of the mines and how he was planning to create a series of new buildings of strategic importance within the town, that would help improve the localities defenses.
Alden, and most other locals supported his plans wholeheartedly and even gave him constructive insights on how his plans could be achieved smoothly without disturbing the day to day rhythm of the town.
***********
( Meanwhile Ben and Leo )
A couple days into their journey towards the Eastern Duchy, Ben and Leo camped near a water stream to rest and water the horses that were tired from the continuous journey.
Up till now, the duo had failed to notice the trailing Virex Corps officials and Hollard, who had carefully maintained a large distance between the two.
Since they were following a fixed road trail and not divulging from the constructed roads at all, the trailing party kept a long distance of over 500 meters to the wagons as nobody seemed to be willing to risk the detection of a master like Ben Faulkner.
"Master… what exactly is a 'master' warrior? How does one become a master?" Leo asked while throwing a pebble into the river in front of him, as he wondered about why some warriors had the designation of being called a 'master' and some did not.
"A master huh? Well…. This is a complicated question boy" Ben said, scratching his chin as he did not know how to precisely describe what the 'master' realm was.
"Well, there are many definitions…. Most commoners believe that a warrior that's capable of taking on 1000 enemies alone is worthy of being called a 'master', however, that's a very crude way of putting it.
A master may be able to take on 1000 enemies…. and he may not be able to do so as well, so this definition is not appropriate in my opinion…" Ben said looking at Leo with a smile, as he seemed to have found the words to describe what a master was.
"You know how you need to consciously gather mana and channel it through your body in a particular path to activate a skill?" Ben asked, as he reminded Leo of the method he used to activate any of his assassin skills, to which Leo nodded.
"I don't have to do the same, as for me activating those skills is as simple as breathing, for I have 'mastered' those skills.
I only need to think about using 'Mirror World' and I'll be able to create any number of doppelgangers I choose, but you can't do the same because you have yet to reach such mastery" Ben said, as he explained what 'mastery' of a skill was to draw a parallel to what the 'master' realm was.
"Similarly to how one masters a skill, there comes a point in a warrior's life, when drawing mana into their bodies no longer remains a matter of conscious effort.
Mana continuously keeps flowing through their mana circuit as if it's an ever raging torrent, and that's when you know you have reached the master realm" Ben explained as he clutched his fists trying to sense the raging mana flowing through his body.
"You can't see mana flow yet boy… but if you could, you would see that the mana flowing inside your body right now is like a very slow moving stream.
Maybe your body completes one cycle of mana rotation in about 6 hours, however, it only takes my body 6 seconds to do the same and it requires no conscious effort on my part to do so.
While every master fighter is different, all of them have such similar high rates of natural body mana flow within them which allows them to use more abilities at a faster rate than normal fighters.
It's a hard sensation to explain clearly, however, the day I stepped into the realm of masters, my physical prowess improved by leaps and bounds and the restrictions on using my abilities were removed almost completely.
Now, it doesn't matter if I have faced 900 opponents back to back, when I face 901st enemy I'll still be able to use all my abilities without feeling the strain on my mana circuit, while a normal fighter would collapse from mana deficiency or mana circuit damage after a 100 repeated uses.
To surmise, I don't know what exactly is a master, but they're much much stronger than normal fighters and your master is definitely a master fighter" Ben said nodding his head in pride at achieving the realm that very few fighters had in their entire life.
------
/// A/N - Bonus chapter for hitting the PS target, good job everyone! ///