First Spartan Unit

No one lived in the Alpes at this point in time. At least not as high up as I was. I thought about how large my country should be and I concluded that it didn't have to be large at all. I decided to take the entirety of the Alpes and some chunks of the countries which would form around then. The territory would span from Austria in the east, to a part of eastern France in the west. The entirety of Switzerland and southern Germany in the north and pretty much the entirety of northern Italy. 

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It wasn't that large of an area for a powerful country like mine will be, but it was enough. I will have enough space for agriculture and anything else I might need. There was only one problem ... I didn't have one person under my banner. That had to change. So I started this process. 

I began to the north. The Goths and the Gauls were those I would have to deal with in the north and the advancing and ambitious Romans from the south of Italy. The Romans would turn north at the start of the second Punic War, which happened in 218 BCE. Before I could go and conquer anything, I needed people who were willing to follow me. And during these times, there were countless. I offered protection, food and a future for them and their families. 

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I entered the first village. I was wearing no armour at the moment. I still didn't get to create the armour I wanted, the armour that was supposed to be worn by me. I was wearing a coat of fine quality and in which I could move comfortably. I had also not yet created my sword or spear, but I wouldn't need it at the moment. I wanted these people to join my cause and not fight them. For that I had something far more efficient ... a bag of confundus dust. 

I wanted to create something similar to the dust of Sandman, that made everyone fall asleep, but changed it midway. Now, I had dust that had similar effects to the Confundus Charm. It made the people that it fell on very susceptible to anything I said. This was the best way to collect followers ... confuse them and then tell them they were your followers. Very simple and efficient. 

After I entered the village, I was confronted very quickly. It was no wonder, the way I dressed and looked was so much different from the current time. I was questioned and the leader of the village came to ask me about my purpose. That was the moment, I used to use the confundus dust. I put some in my hand and then blew into it, causing it to spread in the air and touch most of the villagers who were present. After that, I addressed the leader of the village directly. 

"I am Neoth. I come to tell you that this village is now under my banner. It is time to change things.", I tell him and he just nods in a daze. What I tell him now, will be directly saved in his subconscious. 

"Come, show me your quarters. We have much to discuss.", I tell him and he leads me to his home. When we get there, I use a special spell I created for this purpose. I begin giving him instructions on what to change and what laws he will have to follow. I tell him what things to plant, how to improve their defences and their weapons and some medical things to increase their life expectancy. After that, I leave to the next village. 

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I repeat this process with most of the small and larger villages around the Alpes. I encountered many different people during this time. Right now the villages and the people were weak. With the instructions I had given the village chiefs, I calculate that it will take about a century until some real improvements will be seen. But I didn't just do that. I am not stupid. I am immortal and therefore have too much time on my hands. I have been researching rituals a lot lately and found something very interesting and advanced, concerning the DNA of humans. 

I have been delving deep into evolution and especially genetic engineering. He knew what he wanted and it wouldn't take long until I was becoming the second coming of the 'Emperor of Mankind'. It was too soon now, but it just felt right to do the things he did. I was a fan of Warhammer 40k and liked the aesthetics of things. I wanted to create something similar when I had the chance. And right now, I have the means and the time to research and try things out. 

What I am trying to say, is that I didn't just go around the continent and took villages under my rule. I also took some of the outcasts, criminals and the like with me. I took them to 'Eagle Eye' to use them and change their genetic makeup to create my First batch of super soldiers. I was already in the planning stage and will soon start creating powerful armour. Using magic, these things become so much easier. 

So I took those roughly 1'300 men with me and placed them in the training camp of the Ministry of Warfare. The first stage of turning them into my first Spartan unit, was to wipe their minds of everything they think they know and then build them up again. 

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That's what I did. I placed each of them in a special chamber, which I had designed before going on my quest to secure many villages. These chambers were full of runes and each of these runes was carved in there by me personally. I used my genius intelligence to come up with this rune cluster and achieve the desired effect. Essentially, the chamber would wipe each of them of everything they had. They would lose everything they were, their memories, diseases, psychological problems and injuries. Everything would be flushed out.

The second step was to place each of the men and put them into stasis. I wanted to operate on them and then using the ritual, I had designed for this, I would turn them all into my first batch of Spartans. They wouldn't be Space Marines just yet. For that, I needed much more research. 

As they were in stasis, I started the operation. None of the men here had magic. So none of them would survive this under normal circumstances. But using magic, I could put them into this stasis which kept them alive for a limited time frame. I took inspiration from the augmentations for the SPARTAN-IV program. I wasn't able to do everything yet, but in the future, that might come. Right now, I am focused on two things. 

#1 The Musculoskeletal Engineering series and #2 the Neurological series. I also have a third augmentation in mind, a gene-editing one. But mine is different from the Spartan program. I intend to 'purify' the genome of these initial Spartans and later on, should they die, I will see the changes that these augmentations brought and how to improve them. So I went to work. 

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All of the 1'300 went through the 'purification' process but not all of them made it. Some of them couldn't take the magic energy which 'purified' their bodies and sadly died. So out of the initial 1'300, there were about 1'029 that made it. Now I could go to the second portion, the augmentation. Each of the men underwent the operation and then the ritual I had designed to finalise everything and make everything work well together.

There were two rituals. And the rituals were the most important parts of the augmentations. The initial ritual was to cleanse all the impurities of the men's genomes. I wanted to have them accept what would happen to them, or at least give them the best chance at survival. Then came the augmentations. 

Two in total. #1 The Musculoskeletal Engineering and #2 the Neurological one. 

#1 The Musculoskeletal Engineering series:

The Spartan candidate underwent the operation to induce growth in skeletal and muscular tissues. This means that each of the men's bones were 'lengthened' and their muscles 'stretched'. The bones were then reinforced with skeletal fullerene lattices, which I managed to create. Fullerene is any of a series of hollow carbon molecules that form either a closed cage ("buckyballs") or a cylinder. Using a magically transfigured laser to vaporize graphite rods in an atmosphere of helium gas, I obtained cagelike molecules composed of 60 carbon atoms joined together by single and double bonds to form a hollow sphere with 12 pentagonal and 20 hexagonal faces—a design that resembles a soccer ball.

These skeletal fullerene lattices were regarded as "tougher than steel", which makes them much harder to break and allows survival in harder impacts. The joints were also reinforced or replaced. The reinforcement was necessary as without it, simple actions such as jumping would result in the bones disintegrating due to the strain from the strengthened muscles. This is something I found out the hard way when I had the first few Spartan candidates go through a series of physical tests. 

The candidate's ligaments were reconstructed during the procedures. Muscles were subjected to induced growth and injected with a material that allowed them to work harder without breaking the Spartan's skeleton. They also underwent muscle grafting, after I noticed the necessity for it, again after letting the next batch of them undergo a series of tests. The augmentations also gave them an enhanced muscle memory, which makes observing and learning combat techniques much easier. But that was only possible, thanks to the second ritual, I did after the augmentations.

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#2 The Neurological series

The nervous system is "super-myelinated" to increase the production of myelin sheaths and, therefore, the subject's reaction time. The nervous system is subject to various element treatments, including an increase in cyclic adenosine monophosphate responses and the rebuilding of neuroendocrine cells.

The many candidates that had to die, for me to finally get my first couple of successes is ... embarrassing and saddening to admit. But I managed to get through it and it helped my understanding of the procedures and the future potential and ideas for the new Spartans.

Finally after the Neurological series, the last ritual was performed. This one was to integrate every augmentation into the genome and make it part of the genetic material that can be inherited. I would use the template of their DNA for future genetic engineering and improved Spartans or Marines. 

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From start to finish, the creation of my first Spartan unit took over a decade to complete. The reason why it took so long, was that I had to take care of some of the villages who were under my banner now and defend them from attacks. Apart from that, I also made improvements and new discoveries mid-way, which I then added to the augmentations. The skeletal fullerene lattices and the super-myelinated neurons were both such examples. I didn't plan on introducing them already but changed my mind.

Apart from that, I was met with a lot of failure and had to change things up or even start from scratch. The initial ritual, to cleanse the genome, cost the lives of about 300 men. The first augmentation, the musculoskeletal one, cost the most lives though. Over 700 candidates died then. And more than half of that number, so about 90 to 100 died during the second augmentation. Finally, the last ritual cost another 50 lives.

This leaves me with 100 Spartans. But these 100 are far beyond anything that the world has to offer and they will become the ultimate soldiers during these times. Now, only the armour and weaponry remain and the Spartans have to be trained. I might have given them upgrades, but they need to train nonetheless. 

And then it is finally time ... for Conquest.