An agreement

An agreement

Zach was silent for a couple of minutes as he thought of the best terms that would benefit him without taking advantage of the captives.

"I agree,but all this will have to wait till I upgrade my camp to a settlement,in the meantime,I will send over five low stage wi gathering realm guards to your settlement..."

All the twelve elders were excited by this,but still they held themselves back,as they knew that Zach was not done.

"These guards will arrive in a month time,in return,your settlement is going to pay tribute me..."

"Spirit herbs and plants are a welcome..."

Zach added as after thought,he needed cultivation resources more than construction materials, though he was currently in need of stones for construction more than anything else.

The twelve elders conversed among themselves and came up to an agreement.

"We elders of Evergreen Settlement agree to the lord's arrangements..."

"We will provide spirit herbs and plants as tribute per month,but sir have to know that we can not venture deeper into the the forest,for fear of stronger beast..."

Zach smiled as this would save him time and manpower.

"It is fine with me..."

Now all he needed was to head back and train his guards,as he had to send over five low stage spirit qi gathering realm guards to the settlement in a month.

The talk with the twelve elders took them three hours,and it was already night by the time they were done.

When word of the agreement between the twelve elders and Zach was relayed to the settlement residents,they were all excited and knowtowed to Zach.

Fifty-two of the captives volunteered and they spent the night saying their goodbyes,as they would leave the rest at dawn,and it would be at least a month or two before their loved ones visited Zach's camp,as their settlement would take them that long to rebuild.

As for the bandits,Zach used a bloodline seal to bond them to him. The seal prevented them from going against Zach's orders or doing anything that would bring any harm to Zach.

The bandits were now like his slaves.

At dawn,the two groups parted ways,Zach lead his group towards the grassy plane. He had the five spirit qi gathering realm bandits scout ahead,they were also tasked with slaying any spirit qi gathering realm beast that they encountered.

These materials would later be delivered to Zach,who was currently seated in one of the wooden carts', refining the organs and other materials from the spirit beasts,that had now being modified to a carriage and was pulled by two of the body forging realm bandits.

The refined organs essence was stored in jars for later consumption. These were for his three original guards,Timothy and the herbalist.

As for the spirit herbs,he already knew which ones were required for the refinement of both the spirit qi gathering pills and foundation stabilizing pills from his mysterious knowledge,and so he opted to prepare some of these spirit herbs for later refinement into pills.

He needed a cauldron as to refine the pills,and since he did not have one,he had to forge at the smithy back in camp, luckily for him,he still had the copper coins at hand.

He planned on smelting them for his cauldron. As for igniting spirit qi flame,he had no doubt of succeeding,all he needed was to compress spirit qi into a small flame.

Zach had the remaining bandits,they were to act as guards,gather spirit herbs and herd the docile animals along their path.

Zach had given them a map with the locations of the cows,goats, sheep and boats he had come across while exploring this region of the forest,he would be walking back into his camp with more than thirty livestock. He wondered if the sheds would be enough to hold them all, luckily,he now had more than enough manpower.

He also had the two low stage spirit ox he had seen captured. These he planned on rearing them for their seed. A seed from a spirit beast was tens of time better than one from a normal beast.

The offsprings from these seeds had a higher chance of becoming spirit beasts and their yields were not just doubled but also nutritious to both cultivators and mortals.

A distance that would have taken Zach,a couple of hours took them close to a day to cover,they had to stop at noon for a meal and for bandit cultivators to replenish their spirit qi.

Zach took this time to rush over to his camp,to check on the development and prepare a place for the new residents to spend the night.

He knew that the number hostel had no space for everyone and thus he needed to clear an area outside the camp where the new residents would pitch tent for the night.

He also had the bronze chest to open.

He found the camp noisy but organized as residents busied themselves,there were those building cabins while others cut and dried grass outside the camp to be dried and used for roofing. The guards were busy, either patrolling or training,Zach also noticed that their numbers had doubled.

He had left instructions with the lieutenant to only recruit three youngsters per new batch into the guards unit. And from their overall strength,he could tell that six off them were ready to embark on the cultivation path,as they had attained the minimum required stage of body forging realm,as for the rest,they were one stage below the minimum required stage.

The older residents were happy to see him back, while the new ones, thirty-two of them, curiously observed him.

They have had alot about the camp's lord and his strength.

"It seems like lieutenant and Timothy have everything under control..."

Zach thought as he walked round the camp. The number of wooden cabins both smaller and larger ones had increased.

Zach also noticed that among the new resources gathered,there were close to fifty units of stone and fifteen units of bricks.

"They must have discovered a quarry while exploring the planes."

Zach deduced as he headed for his cabin, acknowledging the residents greetings along the way. He had already sent for the lieutenant and Timothy.