Chapter 15 - Into the Meat Grinder

Jaune and his growing army all pop out of the gates entrance right into a central square of an old military outpost of some kind. They look around slowly while Jaune commands his knights to keep a look out while his archers climb the walls.

Jaune has everyone get into a formation where Vivian, Ruby, Coco, Velvet with a copy of Cocos gun, Nora in grenade mode, and Ren with his gun blades ready, were all in the center of the square with Jaunes archers providing lookout positions from their wall vantage points. The knights all go to a front line position with their other melee fighters all looking around a their surroundings wondering why they were in an old time military fort.

Jaune noticed the state of the fort and it looked like it recently was attacked, only problem was there seemed to be no bodies around them. They looked closer at everything and saw stone work buildings, some reinforcement posts to the walls from well made carpentry, and what seemed to be limited electrical gear such as simple lights, and basic radios.

Weiss walked over to a radio with a knight accompanying her to keep her safe while everyone else spread out in pairs and she turned it over to see a large gash in the radio with blood splatter all over it. She yelps and drops it while taking a step back. The knight immediately goes in front of her with sword and shield ready to prepare for whatever she saw.

Jaune and Yang run over with Iron in tow and check around her before seeing the radio. Yang asks, "What's wrong Ice queen? Something up with the radio?"

Weiss glares at her for the unnecessary title before focusing on the radio again, "I found this radio and I think we might be in a past event in time. This place is too old to be anything from modern day, I think it might be a fort of the great war or even older. We only have simple lights and radios as the sign of any technology here. And this radio… has blood on it. I don't think the owner survived."

Jaune checks the radio while Yang scans the surroundings and he also recoils at the deepness of the gash and the thickness of blood splatter on the brick sized radio. He shows it to Yang who frowns in fear and concern and asks Jaune, "Do you see anything about this place in your quest log yet?"

Jaune checks with the system but is met with a very worrying response.

~Influence… Salem… Control… A- gate… enemy… 20… stronger… careful… reward… limited… system… interference… be careful… Jaune...~

Jaune curses out loud and brings his squad back to the others. Weiss and Yang join the others in their front line formation and explains to them the situation. As he explains the situation everyone slowly but surely become more worried and fearful of their surroundings.

Jaune breaks down the situation, "Okay the system has been partially blocked."

Simin asks with worry clear in his voice, "Has it ever been blocked before? Or is this new?"

Jaune confirms his fears, "This is new, in the past Salem has been able to interfere with a gate and make it stronger or more numerous, usually these gates go up like a half grade from B to B+ and those are from the system So her influence has been limited. However natural gate are ones she can interfere with even more cause she made them so my connection to them is weaker allowing her more control and influence. Like the one you guys helped me with in the park. That gates strength was all her handiwork. Now though? She has interfered with this gate despite it being a gate made by the system."

Coco asks next while keeping her eye on the surroundings as the group has begun to hear growls and shifting movements between the buildings around them, "So she is getting stronger way faster than we originally thought she would?"

Jaune nods and continues, "Yeah. And this makes me even more worried we have gone from a B ranked gate all the way to an A- ranked gate. Nearly a full grade while under the systems protection. So we need to be careful, this gate might be as dangerous as the A ranked one we fought in the park. Maybe more."

Ruby panics a bit and hurriedly asks, "Wait! More dangerous how?! That gate was over 600 Grimm with only a few elites!"

Jaune gulps as he looks around and his soldiers all tense up when the whole group hears an echoing growl sound out from the buildings around them, "Because… There are only 20 enemies. Which means that they are all elites."

Everyone gulps and prepares their weapons fully, the summoned knights all look to Jaune and the Great Knight for orders. Jaune goes to give one right before a fog seems to seep into the center square they are in from all directions. Everyone tenses up and prepares their scrolls and senses to feel where the Grimm could be.

Jaunes archer units prepare to leap off their wall posts to join the group down below before a growl is heard and one of them are snatched off the wall from within the fog rolling over it. The other archer draws their bow and arrow to fire at the creature who took their ally only to suddenly be snatched off of their position next. Jaune flinches as he sees his aura points being drained trying to regenerate the two archer units as they are being torn apart. The third archer manages to leap after its two allies and shoots an arrow at the creature they have yet to see beyond the wall. However after two shots of the bow the third archer seems to share the fate of its two fellow archers as it is soon also being torn apart.

The reason the group knows they are being torn apart? They see a limb go flying over the wall from one of the archers and an arrow being fired into the sky from beyond the wall. They also soon hear loud ripping and tearing noises coming from the same area too.

Jaune manages to unsummon the archers and bring them back into his skill storage where he allows them a few seconds of safety to regenerate and then resummons them to their inner circle of ranged users.

After they manage to recover their archers the paladin units both activate their holy light spells and blow the fog back from their group of defenders. Just as they blow the fog back they suddenly see large shadow forms of the Grimm they are defending against dart back into the fog. They barely get a glimpse but they swear they see large blades on each side of the body sticking out fro behind their shoulders and large, long, wicked clawed arms in front of those blades. They also see two large legs that behave like a beaowulfs and they see the skull for a brief moment similar to a gator skull but with an opening that makes it seem like the skull opens up normally on top but the jaw is in three sections. Similar to a crab.

Blake widens her eyes at the creature and shoots at it in a panic but misses at it shows its true deadliness. It speeds away like Jaune at full speed and then disappears from view completely. Lycan decides to speak what everyone else is thinking, "Oh! Great! These things are deadly and quick! Not only that they can hide in fog and are stealthy when they want to be just perfect! What do we do? Level the base?"

Coco and Velvet have revved up their guns as Coco answers, "I am all for that idea if it means we can stop the hide and seek!"

Velvet nods in agreement while Yatsu nervously darts his eyes around and keeps his ears and senses open. These types of opponents are a bad match for his defensive style, they can chip away at him before he could even lay a clean blow to them. Fox expands his senses before whisking to his left and points at a nearby rooftop.

Everyone follows the finger to see the creature there on top of it roaring out at them and looking as ugly as they thought it looked form the quick glimpse. (For full details look at the video "The Culling" from Rax Animation) Everyone long ranged opens fire at it.

The Shadow Blade Grimm quickly bends backwards and leaps off the building only being grazed by a few bullets despite the barrage they shot at it.

Fox immediately rushed between the long ranged fighters before jumping up past Yang and blocking a flurry of spinning blades from one of the Grimm that were targeting her from behind while she was focused on the shooting. Jaune came up next and blocked a follow up attack from another creature that aimed for Fox from his unguarded side. And then the entire square erupted into chaos as more creatures appeared from the shadows and rushed them.

Every member of their team was fighting one of those creatures and were slowly being led away from the cover support of their long range fighters.

One of those creatures came right at Yang who managed to catch its blades and with her bangle helping her she managed to wrestle it to a standstill. However it took the opportunity to start its special ability, it began to spin its senter mass making Yang grunt in trying to avoid going for a ride. She yelled out, "Careful guys! It can spin its body center! It is literally a blender! ACK!" She finished with a yelp due to her finally being lifted off the ground and being flung around the Grimm in some sick version of a merry go round.

Jaune and the others are trying to reach her but Jaune was being pinned down by a creature who was using its spinning ability to continuously hit his shield and sword. Making him constantly step back from the g force it is building. Jaune finally boosts himself and the others to even the playiong field but the Grimm seemed to notice the boost and the one he was about to counter retreated and attacked one of his knights from the side while another came from behind Jaune and knocked him over. Jaune quickly dodge rolled to reduce the damage and rolled to his feet and began to fight back against the fresh opponent.

Ren and Fox were back to back fighting off three Shadow Blade Grimm at once who were taking turns to attack the sensitive pair of martial artists by running up to them blades spinning forcing them to drain their aura and stamina fending off the attack before retreating as Ren and Fox prepared a counter attack.

The archers, Ruby, and Nora were having to switch back and forth between their long range attacks and melee attacks. As they would land a few glancing hits with their arrows and bullets as the Grimm ran up to them but then they had to switch to knife, hammer, and scythe mode when they got too close. The front line had dissovled into chaos as the creatures were too efficient at breaking down the defenders formation and getting to the gun users.

Coco and Velvet were keeping each other safe by doing back to back Gatling gun spray attacks. They would keep the creature off of each other as it kept trying to get at them one by one to pick them off. A paladin came to help them but was tackled away by a Grimm and is now stuck fighting one on one with it.

Weiss was summoning low ice walls while Simin was summoning low rock walls hoping to trip the creatures mid charge, but they would end up either cutting through them or simply leaping over them. Forcing both dust users to fight melee despite their best efforts.

Vivian was watching over Lycan who was trying to sniff out the Grimm while a knight was watching her back and holding off a creature. She couldn't land a clean hit on any of them as they were too fast or her shots glanced off of their blades instead. And as a result her glyphs couldn't take hold. Lycan was sending out fire clones to light up the area when they were destroyed but the Grimm made sure to throw the cut up clones away as soon as they were sliced through. Making his efforts become wasted.

Blake and Yatsu were helping each other as best they can but were being pressured, Yatsu was hard pressed to react to the creatures hit and run tactics in time while Blake pointed them out. But she was having to split her attention between her own safety and Yatsus safety. She gasps as Yatsu takes a bad hit when she was pinned by a blade and he falls to his knees. She tries to cover for him but is stopped by a creature mid stride and instead has to engage it in one on one combat.

She sees Yatsu is about to be beheaded by a creature behind him before Ragora's familiar come in and chomps the Grimm away. Said witch herself comes over while shooting her saber launcher at the caught Shadow Blade. She helps Yatsu back to his feet and he blushes at her help but she simply smiles at him. She then switches to her glaive mode weapon to block a creature and Yatsu immediately manages to land a lasting cut against it. Making it roar in pain at missing a blade and an arm before it retreats into the fog again.

Pyrrha was bouncing back and forth between helping Lycan and Vivian and going to aid Coco and Velvet with their lack of physical defenders helping them.

Iron and Great Knight are doing their best to hold their own but since they are both tank types they are being whittled away at slowly draining Jaunes reserves for regeneration. Iron looks around as he blocks another attack and sees they are at a stalemate against the Shadow Blade battalion. "Damn at this rate we will lose someone before we take one of them down! We need a way to even the field!"

He blocks and counter attacks another Grimm away. And then he sees Jaune roll by under an attack and counters before an archer shoots and arrow into the Grimms knee allowing Jaune to land a solid hit along its chest making it retreat into the fog. Jaune curses at losing him but Iron looks at the archers. They are tracking the Grimm as best they can despite the fog, they simply aren't fast enough. But he knew of a commander unit that would even the playing field for them.

Iron yells out to Jaune while he blocks yet another attempt by the creatures to behead him, "Master!"

Jaune turns a bit while holding back another Shadow Blade who was grinding both of its blades against Jaune shield trying to crush him under its weight. He goes, "Yeah?!"

Iron finally hammers away his foe and turns to block another Grimm that was trying to leap over him to get to Ren and Fox who were behind him to ease their fight, "I know what commander we need to aid us! If you have the points! Summon an archer Commander! Their stronger sight will tip the scales to our favor!"

Jaune checks his stats to see if he had the means to do so.

Stats:

STR: 152 (+50) (+10 ally boost)

AGI: 152 (+25) (+10 ally boost)

VIT:152 (+40) (+10 ally boost)

INT: 192 (+10 ally boost)

SENSE: 152 (+15) (+10 ally boost)

Points available: 79

Standing army: Gain ability to summon an army of knights under the users command, points available 22/192, basic unit lvl 42: 8 (3 sword, 3 bow, 2 healer) (5 pts per), commander units lvl 45: 1 (1 Great knight) (30 pts per), heroic unit lvl 57: 1 (Iron) (100 pts per)

Commander Unit: Great Knight (Passive: +5% to all ally melee units dmg, stacks with other commander abilities)

Heroic Unit Iron title holder: Iron the Shield of the Light

Jaune saw his stocked up points and looked around the field quickly using his hunter thought speed.

Yang was in front of Ruby and Nora who were both holding back one creature each while she had a skull in each hand holding back two creatures herself. This was happening while her bangle was glowing brightly showing it was using every stat it could give her to reinforce her.

Fox and Ren had been joined by Blake and they had teamed up into a trio to hold back the hit and run creatures. Blake and Ren had their accessories helping but Fox was struggling to keep up.

Yatsu and Ragora were fighting hard along side Jaunes three knights trying to limit their regeneration needs. However even with a group of 5 they were being pushed back hard.

Great Knight had managed to bring Weiss and Simin closer to himself to guard them from all the Shadow Blades that were targeting them. Both Dust users were still summoning stacks of walls to slow down the creatures when they were distracted allowing them time to set up counter attacks when possible.

Iron had managed to scoot himself closer to the ranged users of Velvet and Coco while a Paladin had joined them. They were hard pressed but had managed to set up a system to help them survive the fight.

Jaune looked at Lycan, Vivian, and now Pyrrha had jined them with the 3 archers to provide back up bow support to Lycan and Pyrrha who were fighting off a creature each. A third creature was being held back by the barrage of arrows that Vivian was launching alongside the archers.

Jaune looked back at his opponent and realized that this may be the great equalizer. But why stop with only that?

He said out loud, "System! Apply all points to intelligence stat until amount of 250 is reached!"

~Acknowledged… Players… Request… Good… luck… Jaune… Almost… Through… the… influence...~

Jaune feels the difference immediately as he mind sharpens further than ever before and his thought process goes from seeing everyone moving at a third of their speed, with his hunter thought speed, to about an eighth. He checks his stats and goes to his summoning skill to see what his options are.

Stats:

STR: 152 (+50) (+10 ally boost)

AGI: 152 (+25) (+10 ally boost)

VIT:152 (+40) (+10 ally boost)

INT: 250 (+10 ally boost)

SENSE: 152 (+15) (+10 ally boost)

Points available: 21

Standing army: Gain ability to summon an army of knights under the users command, points available 80/250, basic unit lvl 42: 8 (3 sword, 3 bow, 2 healer) (5 pts per), commander units lvl 45: 1 (1 Great knight) (30 pts per), heroic unit lvl 57: 1 (Iron) (100 pts per)

Commander Unit: Great Knight (Passive: +5% to all ally melee units dmg, stacks with other commander abilities)

Heroic Unit Iron title holder: Iron the Shield of the Light

Jaune grunts before realizing he could do even better on this one now. He adds 20 more points to intelligence before feeling his skills announcement.

Standing army has 100 points available to summon a Heroic unit! Do you wish to do so?

Jaune grins and says, "Summon Ranger Hero unit."

Summoning hero unit under specialty Ranger class.

Hero found. Summoning. Name of the hunter of the northern lands?

Jaune thinks as he finally forces the Grim off of himself with a final push, he has a tingle in the back of his mind as he thinks rapidly of a name. As he does so he suddenly has a vision of a blue skinned man in thick leathers with an ice bow looking at him on top of a mountain. It feels like a memory, one that flashed a name to him and that Jaune caught just barely. As the name resonates with him Jaune yells out, "Baruka! Come forth and serve your Monarch once again!"

Jaunes eyes glow bright with a swath of white auric energy surrounding him as he yells out the name and the call to serve.

A pillar of icy blue light comes out in front of Jaune as a shining blue skinned humanoid who is around 7ft tall appears. He has long blue ears, is dressed in leathers, has twin daggers at his waist, and has a hunters bow on his back with a quiver of ice arrows on his lower back. He opens his glowing blue eyes and turns to Jaune. He kneels and says in an ethereal voice, "This humble hunter of the north now named 'Baruka' has come to serve the new Monarch. Your orders?"

Jaune turns to the Grimm everyone is fighting and yells out, "Baruka hunt all Grimm in the area and help your allies take them down!"

Baruka's eyes widen in excitement as he brings forth his bow and knocks three arrows immediately. It was so fast that barely anyone caught him actually draw the arrows into the knock of his bow. He shoots the bow with such power and force that the sound of a mortar is heard as a force of air ripples out from it and heads right towards a Grimm that was about to strike at Yatsus back. One arrow hits dead center of the skull and freezes the whole head, the next two both hit its legs stopping it dead in its tracks and slams the Grimm into the ground at Yatsus feet.

Seeing the golden opportunity Yatsu and Ragora combine their strikes to behead the Grimm in one fell swoop.

Everyone cheers as the Grimm become fearful of this sudden ally of their prey. The Grimm go to turn and retreat but suddenly Baruka is in front of them all and has already knocked another three arrows and shoots the lead Shadow Blade in both eyes and inside the mouth. As it head triple freezes he suddenly appears in front of it and slashes with his twin daggers so many times that the Grimms head suddenly splits into at least 30 even cut pieces.

The Grimm turn to run again but now that they have gathered in their mad dash to run everyone had regrouped and ready their weapons. The Grimms eyes widen and they all roar as the Hunter Guild rush in to attack them all at once.

The fight was pretty even before Baruka came, but now that they had another Hero unit who could aid them the fight became even balanced since they technically had three units all at Jaunes level.

Baruka froze the Grimms skulls and legs and everyone slashed, blasted, and destroyed the Grimm.

Even when they split up and did their best the hide Baruka led Ren, Fox, Blake, and Lycan with Vivian and their archers on a roof top hunt around to take them out systematically with the melee group holding steady for any Grimm the hunter team drove their way.

After another hour in this place the Grimm were finally all hunted to the last member.

Everyone suddenly feel like a weight disappears from their shoulders as Jaune gets the system back fully.

~Congratulations! You have defeated a Salem Influenced A- Ranked gate!

Rewards: +50k shop points, +25 stat points, full recovery for all members in the raid, New class skill Upgrade!~

Jaune feels the skills knowledge and abilities flood his mind as he goes with everyone to the gate as he also gets his level up notifications from hunting 20 low A ranked Grimm.

Everyone comes out of the gate to the other side and once the gate closes behind them they all collapse into piles of exhausted heaps.

The sound of panting and water bottles being passed around fills the clearing as Jaune sends out his troops to form a perimeter around the exhausted young adults to keep them safe until they are recovered from their ordeal.

Jaune looks around as his stamina is recovering and sees everyone staring at him, he goes to ask why they are staring at him, but is instead glomped by an excited Nora. She excitedly asks, "JAUNE! WHO WAS THAT?!"

Ren eventually unglomps his girlfriend from his brother and also asks, "Actually we are all wondering that. He was way more powerful than a commander unit. Is he a heroic unit?"

Jaune looks at all of their hopeful faces and figures honesty goes a long way here and says, "Yeah I named him Baruka. I don't know why but for some reason it just came to me in the moment and I yelled it out. I think it might be something from the Monarchs memories? It came to me once I was thinking about the north, and hunters and it just showed me a flash of a vision, though it did feel very real, like I had actually been there. He seems to like it at the very least."

Ragora looks at Jaune with a lot of curiosity in her face as she asks, "So you have started to gain memories of the past? From the Monarch? From previous versions? How do you feel after that memory?"

Everyone looks to Jaune in worry that this may be jarring for him or might change him in some way. Jaune thinks it over while Yang, Weiss, Velvet, and Pyrrha all look at him in worry that their boyfriend might lose himself to these new memories.

Jaune admits, "I honestly only had a glimpse, it did feel like a memory, but only enough to know about Baruka so I can name him properly. Even Iron was someone who told me about his past and I was able to summon him as a friend after that. But I can't help but feel like every hero and commander in my army skill has a story to tell. Like they might be heroes of the past who are ready to serve the Monarch of Light in combat once more. Which I am happy for them at that point, since it means we have generations of highly skilled warriors to command and summon to aid us."

Everyone nodded as Lycan looked at Jaune in excitement, "Why don't you summon another Hero unit then? I think those guys are the best investment we can use right now for our training and to help boost our power for taking down the white fang. And they seem to like helping us as long as it is a way to serve you and the reborn Monarchs soul who they were friends with."

Everyone begins to talk excitedly about what they could do for other hero unit summons before Pyrrha claps her hands loudly gaining everyone's attention. Once all the others attention was focused on her she motioned to Jaune and they all saw the grimace on his face.

He explains, "Well I would but my intelligence stat is the one that is used to summon troops. I could try to summon another hero, but I would need to wait another 100 intelligence points to do it. Which either means another 100 levels, another 100 stat points, or another month minimum to summon another one. But at that pace my other stats would fall behind heavily."

The guild members nod at that, smarts are great and definitely helped this time. But Jaune was a warrior his physical stats were suffering as he increased his troops. If he wanted to grow his army he would need to slow down and work on summoning the lower ranked troops for a while. Other wise he would be a very smart warrior with only average stats against higher ranked foes and enemies.

Jaune sighs as he addresses his notifications and rewards he got from the gate this time as he lies down while everyone else rests up and talk among themselves about what they should do if they meet such powerful and tricky Grimm again.

As he checks he sees the points, Always helpful. And I can try to upgrade that knight ring if I want to at this point.

He sees the stats, Definietely a good help since I used up everything to get Baruka into my army.

He sees the skill upgrade, A class skill upgrade? Which one did it upgrade?

He checks his stats, level and all his skills before he bolts straight up scaring his friends with his wild excited eyes.

Pyrrha addresses him first, "Jaune?! What's wrong? Is it something bad? Did something happen to your stats or level?"

Jaune turns to her and kisses her immediately out of excitement from the news he just got. Pyrrha happily blushes at the attention before Jaune jumps to his feet with great news to bring. Pyrrha half listens as she is in a daze at the ferocity of his kiss.

Jaune yells out, "We have an army on our side now! All soldiers report front and center!"

All his soldiers return and stand at attention behind Jaune as he begins to break down what he just saw to all his friends who are looking at him like he has lost his mind while also being extremely curious for what he has gained.

~Player Jaune has gained 8 levels from surviving the A- ranked gate.

Connection to the Monarch has stabilized and aura per level has increased.

Connection to the Monarch has increased and health per level has increased.

Skill Standing Army has upgraded.

Awarded 50 stat points for your ability to handle more of the Monarch of Lights power.~

Level 125

Exp: 61%

HP: 150,000/150,000

AP: 62,500/ 62,500

Fatigue: 0/100%

Class: Master of Knights

Stats:

STR: 160 (+50) (+10 ally boost)

AGI: 160 (+25) (+10 ally boost)

VIT:160 (+40) (+10 ally boost)

INT: 278 (+10 ally boost)

SENSE: 160 (+15) (+10 ally boost)

Points available: 77

Current shop points: 108,251 points

Physical dmg resistance: +47%

Skills:

-???- : ?????

Inheritor: Access to system, over level 20 access to shop

Knight Master: +1 to all stats per ally under users command

Standing army II: Gain ability to summon an army of knights under the users command, points available 49/278, basic unit lvl 42: 8 (3 sword, 3 bow, 2 healer) (4 pts per), commander units lvl 45: 1 (1 Great knight) (25 pts per), heroic unit lvl 57: 2 (Iron, Baruka) (90 pts per)

Commander Unit: Great Knight (Passive: +5% to all ally melee units dmg, stacks with other commander abilities)

Heroic Unit Baruka Title Holder: Baruka Master of the North

Heroic Unit Iron title holder: Iron the Shield of the Light

Arc Bloodline: +400 to AP per level

Expert sword arts lvl 4: 11 times dmg with swords

Unarmed Combat Expert lvl 3: times 10 dmg with unarmed blows

True Warriors Aura lvl 6: +60 to Str, Agi, and Vit for however long this aura is active, heals 1400 HP per minute, cost: 1000 for activation, additional 100 per minute used.

Knights Rallying call lvl 6: +30 to all stats of every person you recognize as an ally within 200ft of user, Lower the physical abilities of foes by 30 points within the area of effect. Costs 1000 AP, lasts 5 minutes.

White Knight Body Armor Rank A:

+15 str

+15 vit

+11% physical dmg reduction

White Knight Gauntlets Rank A:

+10 str

+5 sense

+8% physical dmg reduction

White Knight Sabatons Rank A:

+10 vit

+5 agi

+8% physical dmg reduction

White Knight Basic Helm Rank A:

+10 sense

+10 agi

+5% physical dmg reduction

Rank S Crocea Mors (Seal level 4)

Bonuses: +320 to dmg

+25 str when equipped

+15 vit when equipped

+10 agi when equipped

+15% reduction to physical dmg when equipped

Everyone was excited to know that the troops they would have helping them would soon increase and aid in their fight against Salem. Jaune looked to Iron and remembered his suggestion in the gate. He also decides to equalize his stats a bit with that boost he got from his announcements and quest rewards.

Stats:

STR: 170 (+50) (+10 ally boost)

AGI: 170 (+25) (+10 ally boost)

VIT:170 (+40) (+10 ally boost)

INT: 280 (+10 ally boost)

SENSE: 170 (+15) (+10 ally boost)

Points available: 35

Standing army II: Gain ability to summon an army of knights under the users command, points available 51/280, basic unit lvl 48: 8 (3 sword, 3 bow, 2 healer) (4 pts per), commander units lvl 46: 1 (1 Great knight) (25 pts per), heroic unit lvl 58: 2 (Iron, Baruka) (90 pts per)

Commander Unit: Great Knight (Passive: +5% to all ally melee units dmg, stacks with other commander abilities)

Heroic Unit Baruka Title Holder: Baruka Master of the North

Heroic Unit Iron title holder: Iron the Shield of the Light

Now the summoning, Jaune summons the Commander ranked Archer he told him about and to summon some more knights so they have a full squad ready for their needs.

Standing army II: Gain ability to summon an army of knights under the users command, points available 2/280, basic unit lvl 48: 12 (6 sword, 4 bow, 2 healer) (4 pts per), commander units lvl 46: 2 (1 Great knight, 1 Sniper) (25 pts per), heroic unit lvl 58: 2 (Iron, Baruka) (90 pts per)

Commander Units:

Great Knight (Passive: +5% to all ally melee units dmg, stacks with other commander abilities)

Sniper (Passive: +5% to all ally ranged units dmg, stacks with other commander abilities)

Heroic Unit Baruka Title Holder: Baruka Master of the North

Heroic Unit Iron title holder: Iron the Shield of the Light

Jaune grins as he sees the 3 knights join the squad of other knights behind Iron and Great Knight. Meanwhile he sees the Sniper appear, he is the same size as the other archers, and seems to be in similar armor of studded leathers. But with key differences showing his rank and abilities. He has a better quality bow with sharper and deadlier arrows, he seems to have a full paldron and vambrace on both arms, with a pair of daggers on his belt. Instead of the basic twin dagger set though one seems to be a throwing dagger while the other appears to be a heavy combat dagger. He even has full sabatons, full gauntlets that cover up to his elbows, and even some thigh armor plates and an armored half battle skirt that covers his thighs and all around to his back waist.

He kneels before Jaune before Joining behind Baruka, but ahead of the archers that had gained another member after he summoned 1 extra to enlarge the troops under his archer hero unit. Jaune looks to the healers and realizes that the next time he gets the chance he should hire more of them and a commander for them so that they can have someone to empower them and lead them in a crisis. The knights and archers were working hard under Iron and Great Knights command but the paladins were bouncing all over the field doing what they could.

Jaune makes a note to stock up on many levels and stat points when possible to make sure he is able to get them a proper squad before turning to his friends and seeing their shocked expressions.

He grins sheepishly from shocking them like that before asking, "Any questions?"

Soon he is being bombarded by them before he calms them down to answer them one by one. As he does so he sends off his soldiers to keep a perimeter watch and to keep out of sight so no one can spy on them and get information on his growing forces or the level of his assimilation with the Monarchs soul.

Ruby raised her hand first and asked Jaune, "So are we still going to try and tackle the remaining gates to get you the stats you need? Or are we taking a break and doing your daily training only instead?"

Jaune sighs before answering, "After having Salem influence a gate that was directly under my systems control I am hesitant to making us continue that kind of training… Wait! I gained more control! I should be able to fight her off! Give me a second to try it out!"

Jaune brings out his next C rank gate key while leaving the last 2 alone and opens it. He feels at the edge of his consciousness a creeping feeling, but it retreats when it seems to feel his will ready to fight it. He grins as the gate doesn't even so much as waver, "Looks like we are clear guys! We can do this! Who is ready to knock out these gates one, two, and three!?"

They all roar in agreement and Jaune summons his army to join him in the gate while he opens another one for his friends to train inside of. They all wish each other luck and the two groups dive right in. Not even 20 minutes later both groups leave their gates and both gates collapse in on themselves. Jaune gets the notification that both gates are gone and he got 2 stat points from it. He grins at his friends letting them know that yes it worked without any problems.

They all grin as well and head back to Beacon for some well deserved rest from their ordeal and sudden growth of tackling another A ranked gate and feeling the boost to their abilities that was reflected in their quick elimination of the C ranked gate.

Jaune was lying on his bed gazing up at the ceiling ready for the next day to come hoping that he and his friends would be ready for the upcoming fight against the White Fang.

As he is getting ready to sleep he suddenly has a thought of inspiration that makes him think to himself, before he gets on his jeans and a shirt and heads quietly to the roof of the dorms making sure to bring his scroll and let his friends sleep.

He puts in a call to Ozpin, he waits for a minute and checks the time to be just past 11pm. He sees his video call go through and sees a well dressed Ozpin still at his desk, "Greetings Mr. Arc. What can I do for you this fine evening?"

Jaune stares at him, then his background then back to him and asks, "Ozpin… Do you like. Sleep in your office? Or are you just a night owl?"

Ozpin chuckles at the blunt questions and answers, "Yes and yes actually. I always felt more at peace here in the clock tower. It reminds me that even though I have lived so many lives, I can still enjoy the passage of time as I do my best to protect humanity you know?"

Jaune nods at that and then gets to his main question for the call, "I do actually have a request of you Ozpin, if you have the time."

"Ask away Mr. Arc. I am all ears."

"Are you busy with anything tomorrow? I could use your help with a thought I have had."

Ozpin leans back in his chair and checks his calendar before smirking to himself and clicking a few things around before sitting back up and looking at Jaune again, "I am now completely available tomorrow What do you need?"

Jaune smirks at him and asks, "How would you like to dust the cobwebs off of your cane old man? Feel like joining my guild on a training exercise and teaching us what you know?"

Ozpins eyes gain a flash of rainbow colors passing through for a brief moment, but Jaune caught it. A rare honest smile of expiration and excitement fills his face as Ozpin becomes excited for the first time in decades at the prospect of training alongside his friends soul once more. He grabs his cane and lays it across his lap before stating. "Tell me the time and place Mr. Arc. I shall be there to teach you all my wisdom and ways."

Jaune smirks at the Wizard's excitement and tells Ozpin the location of the clearing they meet in and what time they will be there. Ozpin tells Jaune he will be looking forward to the training practice and logs off the call. Jaune nods to himself before bringing out the ring that has been gathering dust in his inventory.

Knights Ring Rank C

+10 Str

+10 Agi

Jaune thinks who could use this and smirks as he remembers who was defending their friends as best he could despite the disadvantage he faced. Checking his points Jaune goes wild on this one and manages to develop an amazing ring for his friend who deserves this. The one friend who tries his best in anything he does to defend his friends and be there for them when they need him the most.

Current shop points: 75,251 points

Knights Ring Rank S: Registered User: Yatsuhashi Daichi

+20 Str

+20 Agi

+10% physical dmg reduction

True Sight: Gain the ability to see through all illusions and mind altering spells and abilities used by an opponent.

Jaune huffs to himself in pride at how much this will benefit the friendly giant. Not only will he be faster but he will be tougher, stronger, and be immune to any mind altering attacks used by foes who might use such spells against them.

Jaune yawns as he heads to bed and grins as he looks towards the moon. He lets his powers flow through him to feel the ease they come to his call now and flexes his whole body. He smiles to himself as he makes his promise, I will see this through, and I will make sure my friends are going to survive this! We will defeat Salem! And we will make a peaceful life for ourselves and for our families!

As he says that he suddenly flashes forward to having rings on the hands of Yang, Weiss, Pyrrha, and Velvet. Then all of them entering a house they bought together. Then all four girls showing him positive pregnancy test. The next flash shows him all four girls heavy with their children in their bellies growing well. Finally him being a happy father to his children with their mothers all around as they enjoy a movie as a family. Yang with her older son and younger daughter. Pyrrha with her twin daughters and younger son. Velvet with both pairs of twins who are a pair of boy and girl. And Weiss with both their older and younger daughters. Him smiling at them all as they enjoy the life together they all fought so hard for. Smiling with happy tears gathering in the corners of his eyes Jaune heads off to bed with a heart full of love, and his aura shining brightly in his soul ready to fight back the darkness.