Chapter 15: Steps to Evolution

After conversing until the next afternoon, talking for a grand total of 25 hours, Gin and Kagali finally finished discussing their plans for the next decade.

Sharing ideas about trading, training, the rise of the Eastern Empire, the wars in the western countries, and other things, Gin was ready to head out.

The next stop after the Puppet Nation was the scattered dwarven tribes. The founder of the Armed Nation of Dwargon, who was the first Dwarf Hero, King, and Gazef Dwargo's grandfather was not born yet and had not yet united the dwarfs.

That made Gin's next task much easier. Instead of having to ask the king to allow the immigration of a few Dwarfs and exchanging resources for them, Gin would be able to discreetly recruit some Dwarfs by asking them directly, not having to pay with resources, and also be able to hide her actions.

To become a secret powerhouse of the world, The Dragon Kingdom would have to recruit Dwarfs as both engineers and blacksmiths, while not allowing news of this to spread.

Gin's plan was to save an isolated Dwarven Tribe, and have them repay their debt with immigrating to The Dragon Kingdom and working there.

The amount of natural metal in the Dragon Kingdom was not the largest, but Gin would be able to trade with the Puppet Nation Jistav for steel, and then saturate the steel with her Magicules to create Magisteel.

Arriving at the Dwarven Mountain which contained hundreds of various Dwarven Tribes, Gin visited the outskirts closest to the Great Forest of Jura.

As the nation was not yet united, monster attacks were frequent, and would be the perfect cover for her operation.

Putting on a mask similar in style to Rimuru's, Gin posed as a Majin and used [Universal Sense] from [Entertainment King Dionysus] to search for tribes that fit her requirements. The tribe would have to be on the smaller side, contain a near equal amount of each gender so that more could be born in the future, they would have to be master blacksmiths, and would have to live in an isolated area that monsters would attack.

There were many tribes that almost fit her requirements, but they would always be off by one or two.

One tribe fit all the requirements perfectly, but they lived in an area surrounded by many other dwarven tribes, and therefore not be able to be hidden if Gin recruited them.

Another was perfectly isolated, had many master blacksmiths, and had a smaller population. But that tribe was basically all male, and would naturally die out in a few generations.

Searching for a full day, Gin was unsuccessful in her search, but she didn't give up.

Travelling until she travelled to the opposite side of the mountain, where the ocean close to the Frozen Continent reached that main land, Gin finally noticed something interesting.

There was a tribe that perfectly fit her requirements. Living in a small cave facing the endless sea was a small tribe of about one hundred dwarves, which the majority were blacksmiths instead of warriors, and would not be able to defend themselves in a monster attack.

The only problem was that there were no monsters.

But as if the world were on her side, Gin noticed they had a problem. This tribe of Dwarfs all seemed sick. They were coughing, were lying down with towels over their foreheads, and were groaning.

Before approaching, Gin had [Great Sage] analyze them to find the root of their problem. She decided to make a deal where she would recruit them in return for saving them, which would work the same as protecting them from a monster attack.

{Received. This tribe of Dwarfs have no disease, but their water supply has been poisoned. This poison is easily cured, but hard to identify, as it is colorless, odorless, has no smell, and is overall almost unable to be identified.}

'That sounds terrible. I wonder who would do such a thing.' Gin though, as she slowly approached the Dwarven settlement to show that she didn't mean any harm.

"Who's there?" A young female Dwarf yelled. This girl was the only one in the tribe of 100 that was not lying down resting, even though she also had signs of the poison. Instead, she was working through the pain to help her fellow Dwarves.

"I mean you no harm. I am here to help." Gin said. To make a better impression, she decided to help them first and make the deal after they were saved.

"REALLY?" The young girl asked with hope.

"Do you know what caused this?" Gin asked. She wanted to know if the girl knew who had poisoned them and if she even knew about the poison.

The girl, who's name Gin learned was Jane, told Gin that about a week ago, a group of human knights from a nearby City-State was trying to coerce them into joining them, but the dwarves refused. Then the next day, people started falling sick, and since then, every day, that group of humans have been returning every day at noon and asking if they were going to submit, but each time the dwarfs had denied them. But unfortunately, Jane didn't know how much longer they had, which was why she was so happy that Gin had arrived.

While listening to the story, Gin had [Great Sage] analyze the poison, and learned that a cure wasn't really needed. The poison was made by magic, and would naturally disappear when surrounded by Magicules.

After that, Gin spread her energy throughout the cave, surrounding all the Dwarves and quickly cured them. But as she did so, suddenly, they all emitted the mystical white light of evolution.

Not knowing what was happening, Gin asked [Great Sage].

{Received. These Dwarves are undergoing evolution into Dragon Blood Dwarves.}

A few hours later, when the sun had started to ries, the evolution finished. Jane was the first to wake up, and quickly realized something had changed. Obviously, the dwarves were no longer showing signs of being sick. But not just that. Each of the Dwarves eyes had changed from their earthly brown to a shining yellow. But it wasn't just that. The Dwarves ranks had increased from the natural Dwarf rank which was rank E, to a solid C- rank. Jane, went even further and evolved all the way to C+ rank, and looked like she had lots of potential for future growth.

As the rest of the dwarfs woke up, they noticed that they weren't sick anymore, but most didn't seem to notice their evolution until Jane brought them up to speed. She also informed them that Gin had saved them.

When hearing this, almost all of the dwarves had agreed that they should follow Gin, and become her subordinates. Gin was surprised, as she didn't even need to make the deal.

But the dwarves wanted to do one last thing before moving. Those humans were on schedule to arrive in a few hours, and with some weapons that Gin had created with her skills, the Dwarves wanted to finish them off.

Pretending to still be sick, the Dwarves lied down under blankets with their weapons hidden, planning on luring the arrogant knights into their cave before ambushing them. Gin left the dwarves alone, flying a small distance away to allow them to have their revenge.

Right on schedule, the pesky knights had arrived, poking fun at the "sick" dwarves and proposed the same deal where they would cure them if the dwarves agreed to follow them.

However, those knights were in for a surprise, as the dwarves hadn't taken to their insults, and instead got up holding weapons and pounced at those humans.

Without resistance, the knights were cut down, and the Dwarves were finally free from their aggressors.

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Finished with her agenda of recruiting master blacksmiths, Gin headed towards her last destinations before returning to the Dragon Kingdom.

Having their revenge, the Dwarves were teleported to The Dragon Kingdom by Gin, and had Emilia and Kaguya help them settle in at the capital.

And with the country's future set in a great direction, all that was left was increasing her strength until she could evolve.

Not knowing what the requirements were to evolve, Gin had earlier decided to visit the Sorcerer's Dynasty Sarion. Well, not exactly. Gin wanted to visit the World Tree, in hopes that the energy of the tree could empower her and force an evolution.

Gin decided to first stop off and meet both Sylvia El Ru and Sarion Grimwald, the two rulers of the elves, to get permission.

Entering the country and approaching the World Tree, the elves seemed to have been expecting her, as Gin was greeted by the royal guards and brought before the emperor and empress.

"Greetings, both of you. My name is Gin, and I'm here to try to connect to the World Tree in hopes of evolving," Gin introduced herself and truthfully said what her goals were."

"Its nice to meet you!" Sylvia said.

"I hope the tree could be of help, but I think you should meet with the spirit queen. As the spirit queen, she has a small authority over the world, and would probably be able to research how you could evolve." Sarion suggested.

Hearing this great suggestion, Gin's eyes opened wide, and she quickly thanked the two before teleporting directly outside of the labyrinth.

"RAMIRIS!!!" Gin yelled outside the closed door leading to the spirit labyrinth.

When the door opened a few moments later, Gin found herself teleported into the bottom floor. Because Milim had been hanging out here for multiple years, Ramiris had asked for permission to use her Magicules to increase the size of the labyrinth, only adding three more floors. Milim accepted, but wanted to renovate the place, so they had somehow come up with the idea of making a huge maze on the first floor to have adventurers find their way around. The second floor would be a boss room where the adventurer would fight a boss so that Ramiris could see if the person was worth in strength and in heart. The third floor was where the Dwelling of the Spirits would be, and the last floor would be Ramiris's personal space.

Gin had come at the perfect time, as they had just made the floors, but just needed help making a better layout and have monsters and guardians.

Hearing what they needed, Gin agreed to help out, but also asked Ramiris for help.

"I wanted to know how and when I would evolve into a True Dragon." Gin said.

"Ha Ha Ha. Of course you would ask the great me for help in your time of need." Ramiris said smugly.

"Actually, I kind of forgot about you. It was when I met Sarion that he suggested I speak to you." Gin said, smiling.

"GAH!!!" Ramiris screamed, looking like lightning had struck her. "Well, let me see what I can do."

Not knowing that she had just been scanned, [Great Sage] had said.

{Received. The being known as Ramiris had just analyzed you with her Intrinsic Skill [Labyrinth Creation]. Using [Entertainment King Dionysus], analysis shows that this skill is estimated to be on the same level as an Origin Skill, meaning it is stronger than your [Entertainment King Dionysus].}

'Ahh, that makes sense,' Gin thought.

"I GOT IT!" Ramiris yelled all of a sudden. "All you need to do is to increase your EP Value to One Million (Rank S), as well as meditate into a calm state in an environment filled with the light element.

Judging by the analysis I got, you're not too far off from your evolution, and should start preparing."

Surprisingly, Ramiris was very helpful. Gin decided on returning once she evolved to try to hatch the still unhatched eggs of Gaia and Lin, as well as create the maze.

Returning to the Sorcerer's Dynasty Sarion, Gin informed the two rulers that she would be staying on top of the tree for a while, and they agreed.

But before she did, Gin decided to open up trade talks, agreeing to trade their food for the next few years to that the elves could focus on other parts to support their country. They would also trade clothing and tools in exchange for Homunculi that they were creating. Gin also agreed to defend the Dynasty for one decade, which would be enough time for the elves to finish settling down and create and train their army.

And with this, Gin moved to the very top of the colossal sized World Tree, sitting in a meditative position with her eyes closed, legs crossed, hands on her knees, absorbing the light of the sun as well as the natural and spiritual energy of the surrounding nature.

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Extra Authors Notes:

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

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