These reports were terrible for Sabir. This mage was doing research, had somehow gotten an alliance with the Arachne princess, and was training a new crop of mages that could presumably disable his soldier's access to the System. He had to be stopped immediately.

  But now he knew where this fellow lived. He was among the beetles. And he was helping them build their farming operation. If they got it big enough and secured it they would be impossible to siege out once enough reinforcements were acquired.

  The press-gangs of the lower quarters of the imperial cities were working as fast as they could but sufficiently disposable fodder was hard to come by, at least when there was a war brewing between some of the Empire's vassal states in the islands. He would have to draw from his personal account to pay for a few grunts to be sent.

  Having made a letter and getting his secretary, one of the younger men who actually knew their letters, to send it by the next caravan that was going north. He would lose most of his salary for his work here but that would be preferable to sharing the city.

  He went to see the training soldiers, though reviewing their training was only a formality currently.

  The ancient priest was sitting in a rocking chair by the System Stone and was giving some suggestions to his soldiers on where they should work to make improvements. To someone unfamiliar it might seem pedantic but as he heard from one of the younger priests there were actually set requirements to unlock each increase in power.

  Being able to sprint a mile or throw a man over your head would give you perks and some of them were cumulative simple actions. The current one that was popular was the unlocking of a much more powerful sword strike which required one to make an overhead strike with a sword three thousand times in an hour. The priest, he still refused to share his name, was giving advice on what could be done to increase the base stats of the different soldiers so they could make the requisite number of strikes in a row. One thousand strikes in twenty minutes three times over was difficult.

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  The priest himself showed that he could make seven thousand strikes in twenty minutes.

  "Greetings, Priest of the System."

  "Greetings, Sabir. What can I help you with?"

  "Can we talk within the sanctum?"

  In response the priest stood and hobbled into the temple. The sanctum was a room on the second floor and was secure against intrusion. There were some seats around a round table and the priest took one.

  "So Sabir. What is it that you need me to be secretive about?"

  "I have need of you to honor the agreement you made. I need an assassin to be made of one of my men."

  "It's bold, asking for the reward before you honored the agreement. I assume that heretic-mage has caused some issues for you?"

  "He's training apprentices"

  "Hmm." the priest leaned back in his seat, steepling his fingers. "This needs to be dealt with promptly. I assume you know he lives among the beetles."

  "Of course you knew." Butter him up.

  "I'd hate to make your spies redundant, they're useful for other things. But you must know that invading their territory is folly. They have their so called goddess on site."

  "I'm sure she could be dealt with. A false god is not as powerful."

  "She's a trickster. I myself would not go in unless I were exceptionally desperate, even with all the blessings of my lord that were heaped on me." Then the priest laughed.

  "You thought you would get me involved directly. He'd need to be a threat to the whole network for me to intervene directly. I will make two of your scouts mid level assassins. They should be able to survive that much immediate power. Now leave. I shall have to train myself in case this mage is of any real talent."

  Sabir left as he was ordered. He had a dozen levels mixed between warlord and administrator and didn't want to lose any progress to the capricious priest.

  On leaving the temple one of the scouts rushed to him.

  "Captain! Erik and Percy collapsed. They are unresponsive."

  Captain Sabir went to see to the scouts. The cause of their distress was obvious but hopefully they would survive the experience. The priest would be unwilling to talk today to raise up any more.