84 Chapter 84 Three year round up

"Well now I think it's time for the timeskip."

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3 Years later

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During this period of time Kyle and his crew had never ceases in their training and were getting stronger day by day. The distance in strength between the members of his household had decreased and any of them would be able to protect themselves.

Miranda and Clara had continued practicing with 'steel lotus' and had become exceptional scouts and assassins in their own rights. The training Kyle had 'steel lotus' practice began with the same body strengthening training he had used on 'death watch' and 'shadow hand' but as time went on he diverged their training scheme and instead started training them using techniques he had seen in movies.

This started with moving over surfaces which made various noises like loose stone and if Kyle could hear them with his enhanced senses they failed. This helped train Kyle's senses at the same time so they were always in a cold war but it did allow 'steel lotus' to progress at an insane rate. They were also trained in medicine and poison, it wasn't Kyle who taught them this but rather they learned this from Alena the previously burned alchemist girl.

Alena had a great deal of knowledge about plants and their properties from her study of alchemy and with Kyle using his soul sight to analyse the potential of various plants and their properties they made great strides in their experiments. While 'steel lotus' didn't work as maids very much they did help Alena with the herb garden in the third floor basement.

The herb garden flourished much more than it would have in any other situation as the array's present helped nourish and accelerate the growth of the plants found within allowing them to have an overabundance of material to experiment with. Alena was also training some of the other girls so they would be able to look after other herb gardens at a later date. On a side note Alena seemed to have a crush on someone, but to everyone's shock it wasn't Kyle instead it was his stalwart buddy Bruno who was the apple of her eye.

Kyle was happy for his friend who to the irritation of everyone was completely oblivious to what was going on and instead carried on with his happy go lucky life. Kyle suspected this affection was due to something that happened while Alena was still healing. Alena had taken off her heavy robe due to it getting damaged during training but this allowed her scars to be seen by everyone. Nobody felt repulsed or was horrible to her as she was now one of them but almost everyone had pity in their eyes. This is sometimes worse than hate and fear, just as she was about to cover herself in another robe Bruno piped up with his usual bluntness and just said.

"Wow you have really pretty eyes." There was no ulterior motive to what he said he just thought she had very nice deep blue eyes. Which he told Kyle later, but this seemed to have been enough to cement the girls affection on this buffoon.

'Steel lotus' themselves trained in smaller weapons and other infiltration methods. Kyle would create simulation situations where they would have to sneak in and reach a target within a specific time frame using whatever means they could and Kyle would grade them based on time and success. This forced the girls to come up with many different means of breaking and entering including lock picking and the use of parkour which Kyle had taught them the basics of.

While Kyle let them choose their own weapons every member of 'steel lotus' carried throwing spikes, lock picks, a grappling hook and a form of armoured claw. The weapons they generally chose were small blades like daggers or wakizashi blades with a few exceptions. Kyle was really happy with 'steel lotus' and after a year of training Faye had taken command of them with the support of her sister.

'Death watch' had also grown considerably during this time. Their strength could match any group of guards within the city and if they operated as a unit they could easily trounce a group of greater number than themselves. This was due to Kyle focusing on their teamwork; this was similar to their previous training in the army but with more flexibility in their command structure. Kyle had introduced more ranks to them allowing the platoon to breakdown into squads and again further into teams.

They were also trained not to try and take down an enemy alone but rather to engage them in 2 or 3 on 1 because if the enemy attacked they would have a belief that they would win so why would you fight them on their terms. Kyle gave them an example he got from a movie again.

"If a guy wants a fist fight bring a club, if he brings a club bring a sword, if he brings a sword bring 3 friends." Kyle didn't believe that a fight to the death was a fair fight and he trained his men to believe the same.

While 'steel lotus' focused on training their flexibility, speed and hiding skills 'death watch' focused on strength, defence and endurance they were going to be his front line defenders like the infantry from the armies in his past life so they needed to have heavy weapons and armour. While they used heavy weapons the selection was far wider and they had choices of axes, hammers, swords, spears or halberds some chose other weapons but there were only one or two who went this route.

While Kyle hadn't succeeded in producing magic power armour yet (not for lack of trying) he had managed to give them a better form of plate armour which gave them a wider range of movement than what existed previously. He had based it on some of the armours that a certain superhero with a close relation to a flying rodent had come up with in his dystopian, gothic city. The effect for lack of a better vocabulary looked cool and he couldn't wait until they appeared on a battlefield in their full glory, the effect of this would be awesome to behold.

'Shadow hand' had suffered Kyle's training for a whole year. They helped Lady Sparrow in the afternoon and evening but had to be present for training in the morning regardless. One and his men managed to make it through this hell by holding onto one thought 'we can do this to our juniors'.

The other gangs had been pretty quiet during this time after they had heard of the warning Kyle had left on the slave trader's corpse. When the contents of this warning reached these gangs they feared a new player had entered the game and until they knew their strength it was better to consolidate their current power.

This gave 'shadow hand' the time needed to gain their foothold as Kyle had hoped. They began their conquest with Lady Sparrow's brothel and took out the guards there. These were low level new recruits to the seven snakes so they hadn't been involved with anything to heinous and so were absorbed into 'shadow hand' once Kyle enforced the slave seals onto them and One took great pleasure in breaking.....teaching these new recruits Kyle's training regime.

In a short while 'shadow hand' had taken over the seven snakes. This was a relatively bloodless assault as One had known at least some of these men and as a protection racket they weren't involved in anything to terrible.

Once 'shadow hand' had seized this territory the halted their expansion and instead focused on securing their territory and strengthening their new members. 'Shadow hand now had the greatest number of Kyle's forces but as Kyle absorbed the family guards into his forces this would change. Speaking of absorbing the family guards Kyle had made a point to bring in Captain Tobias (market guard captain) and the A'hole squad (the relatives of the traitor guard). He found these men were good and loyal people so he placed Tobias in charge of the A'holes before training them and teaching them investigation procedure.

They started by interrogating the traitor guard and dissected what he said looking for evidence. Kyle could tell when he was using his empathic sense which Kyle had taken to calling soul eyes. Once they had pumped the traitor for all the information they could they placed him in jail and carried on training by questioning various prisoners and investigating various crime scenes. During this time they became very proficient in uncovering the truth and Kyle decided once this group increased in number he would reform them as a new squad.

Landon was very pleased when he saw the strength and loyalty of Kyle's people. These would be the new backbone of the family and with them they would soar. After Kyle had healed the black family their relations with the Powell's had improved to the point that Landon and Leonard began to call each other brother. With his family healed Leonard had come out of his funk and had returned to being a robust and outgoing leader like he was previously.

The elders were happy with this new relationship as with this progress the Miles family had to step back in fear of being attacked by both families if they attacked one. They however were less impressed when Landon insisted Kyle should be involved with the management of the family. This was only exacerbated when Kyle began to insist on reform within the family.

It began when Kyle brought in a group of erudite slaves to take the position of middle management. These people would help in the day to day running of the properties and businesses of the family much like how Zak helped Kyle in the running of his mansion. Once these people had been trained in how Kyle wanted them to work Landon and the Elders had to agree it was a good idea and eventually Kyle earned a place on the family council. This wasn't without incident as a few elders and his eldest uncle walked out, Kyle only shrugged his shoulders before he got back to work.

While Kyle introduced certain administrative alterations he also learned a great deal from the Elders particularly in the field of politics. Kyle wasn't really one to focus on the schemes and machinations of those who wished him ill but with the help of the elders he gained clarity on this scene. He grew close with a few of the elders and played mind games and played out situations to see who would win.

In the beginning the elders could run rings around him with their words and hidden meanings but eventually Kyle could stand his own against them in debate. He realised after he understood the politics of this world our world was far dirtier because after a while in deadlock the people her would just resort to force.

The final thing Kyle had found during this period was that the ruins he had purchased had 'healed'. These buildings were different than he had even conceived of, the reason the stone appeared to be fused was because they weren't built but instead grew like cells in a body using mana from the crystal as fuel. It took months but eventually the mansion had been fully re-built but it was still hidden under the 'concealment' arrays. 'Shadow hand' had been using this as their base after it had become fully active again.

Realising the potential of these places Kyle moved to purchase the others in the city. 3 of them were no problem as the owners were happy to be able to get some money for them, the last however was in the ownership of the Miles family and they refused all offers. So Kyle simply broke in one day and reactivated the property with a crystal shard from his own mansion like he had done with the others. All the mansions had the altar like structure on the second basement floor with at least one sphere present. Kyle now believed these were the source of the connection between them and once they were all fully operational Kyle had a feeling something special would happen.

"Now are we all caught up?"