Leo secretly longed to accompany Ben to StrongHaven City, to witness his matches live in the Grand Arena, however, the he had made with the system operators forbade him from leaving Crest-Hill Barony for the next six months.
Hence, when the day finally arrived for Ben to depart for the capital, Leo could only embrace him in a heartfelt goodbye, wishing him the best, feeling fully confident that his master would likely emerge victorious in the masters-only event.
"Give them hell…. Old man" were the last words that Leo told Ben before he departed, as with him gone, Leo found himself buried under an increased workload.
There was a lot of work to be done in the Barony to smoothen out the administration, improve public services, improve the refugee situation and complete many other menial tasks.
One such new project that Leo found himself buried under was 'Project Snakeman'.
With the newly obtained snake gem under his possession, Leo issued a quest for citizens and players of his Barony to bring him any species of snake alive and exchange it for rewards, and on the very first day itself he received a total of 12 snake submissions.
Under project Snakeman, Leo intended to raise these snakes inside the Crest-Hill Manor, as he wished to train them into a lethal assassination unit, or a farm for their venom to be extracted.
Usually, dealing with snakes was a difficult ordeal, with there being only a few expert beast tamers who could handle the more aggressive one's, however, Leo faced no such trouble.
With the snake gem in his possession, he could almost communicate with the snakes as if they were humans as no matter how complex the command he issued was, as long as he willed for it to happen, the snake gem ensured that his wishes were communicated to the snakes.
On the very first day of his testing, Leo willed for one of the more venomous cobra snakes to slither away from the palace's garden and somehow make its way into his office, and surprisingly, the snake did exactly what he wished for it to do, even though he never properly explained where his office was or how to get there.
This test indicated to Leo that the snakes had a decent level of intelligence in them and were not just low level thoughtless monsters, and that with proper training, he could genuinely create a devastating snake corps under his command.
"Hahaha, master Ben is going to be so shocked when I show him this–" Leo muttered to himself, smiling, as he resolved to create some sort of useful snake corps by the time Ben returned from the Capital, so that he could stun him with his results.
*********
( Meanwhile Luke )
Seven days passed in a blink of an eye for Luke, who had all of his focus concentrated on the upcoming demon onslaught.
Every day, from the second he logged into the game, Luke found himself either scouting the enemy camp, strategizing with the guild's team captains, or staring aimlessly at the battle-lines map, as he thought about every possible scenario that could possibly unfold.
It was not an understatement to say that he had been steadily slipping in ranks ever since the rankers only event was concluded, as rarely did he ever go out to perform leveling duties, with most of his gaming time consumed by guild work itself.
In a way, it was only because he was so diligent and thorough with his duties that Cervantez could enjoy a certain degree of freedom as the guildmaster, as while Luke did not even have time to level up, Cervantez was mostly free for the full length of his gaming day, as except for attending the daily war briefing, he had no other mandatory obligations.
Recently, having purchased the Martial Arts Scroll and the Flame Wave Spell, all of Cervantez's free time had been spent towards mastering these new techniques, and the results spoke for themselves, as he had successfully mastered the [ beginner ] stage of the flame wave spell as a result.
Today, as Luke spotted the enemy camp being on the move, the individual who was the most excited to hear this news was none other than Cervantez, as he was itching to use the [ Flame Wave ] in a real battle scenario once.
"The enemy is on the move. We should mobilize the guild into their battle positions, as although the enemy won't be upon us until tomorrow dawn, we must suspend all leveling activities and friendly spars and get the guild into war shape–" Luke said, after returning from his scouting mission, as Cervantez cheerfully nodded at his words.
The entire DarkSky guild was immediately alerted that the enemy was on the march and within the next two hours, every guild member took their battle positions, feeling excited at the prospect of facing the demons the next day.
Overall, as Luke walked amongst the ranks of his guild members, the atmosphere looked starkly different from the first time the guild faced the demons.
This time, rather than being nervous the guild members looked excited and eager to fight the demons, and were hoping that it was not only the mages and archers who got the fun and that they too got a piece of the action.
"Vice guild master! Watch me! I'll destroy the Demon Commander with a suplex, just for you–"
"Vice guild master! We want to see you suplex a demon!!!"
"Vice guild master! We will win this attack wave too!"
Wherever Luke walked, the guild members either casually joked with him, or expressed their confidence to win in what Luke felt was a very positive atmosphere.
The guild was slowly but surely evolving into a reliable war unit and once they got the experience of a dozen or so wars, Luke had no question in his mind that the DarkSky guild would become an unstoppable force within the world of Terra Nova.
"Yes, we will win—, no question about that!" Luke said, as he too looked forward to the big fight tomorrow.