JR Chp. 3.1

Hey Guys! Sorry the Journey Chapters are a bit short! With this we should be right about even in the timeline lol!

Azra POV~~~~~

I watched the dragon as it made its way through the forest away from us. The huge figure managed to pass through the trees without damaging them, and I managed to see the trees seemed to tilt away from him as he passed. I felt a slight sensation from the terra mana that seemed to be from the dragon. I figured he must be shifting the ground around the roots to tilt the trees. It was a simple but very masterful use of mana especially on a continuous basis like that.

After the dragon was a good ways away, we took off again headed in the direction that the dragon had mentioned. It was in the same direction, so it wasn’t that big a change. We soon noticed signs of people traversing this part of the forest, and more than should have been in the automata group that vanished. It was dawn when we came upon a decent sized wooden and stone wall. It was at least five meters tall from what I could tell. We noticed what looked like a gate and made our way for it. 

We were about fifty meters from it when we heard a voice, “Halt!”

We quickly came to a stop and looked up at the top of the gate. There was an automaton that stood with an air-rifle pointed at us. It looked a little different than the ones Master created, but it might just be that it had to adapt. 

“We come…” Puppet said but was interrupted.

“Lord Puppet! Open the gate!” The automaton called down on to the other side of the gate. 

“Lord Puppet?” Natsuko snickered quietly, “Then I better be Lady Natsuko.”

“They don’t know you, you were made after them. How about little sister Natsuko?” I teased her.

“Hmph, they should recognize greatness from just a glance,” Natsuko said with her nose in the air. 

The gates soon opened, and we were led in by the guard. I was surprised by what I saw. There weren’t just automata but also mortals in the what I now saw was a village. I saw several of the automata as we walked in, they seemed to be either the leaders or protectors of the village. The village had several huts and some other large buildings that seemed to have been roughly made with terra magic. 

We were led to a larger hut that was towards the center of the village. It had two wings with a large center structure. While it was still roughly made, it looked like someone had tried to make it a little nicer. The automaton knocked on the door, and a mortal opened it, I wasn’t sure who was in charge now. 

Finally, we arrived at an office like room that had two rough desks on either side of the room. Next to the left desk stood a mortal beastman, he had wolf features and seemed quite powerful. He was large and seemed to have seen several battlefields.

 Next to the right desk stood Master’s Major automaton. He had changed though as before he looked… well plain. Now he had several extra weapons on his person and on his chest where a person’s heart would be were several shapes that seemed to have been attached.

“Lord Puppet, Lady Z2, and Lady Azra! The Creator has finally found us!” The Major said when he saw us. 

“That’s right, Father has been worried about you, sorry it took us so long,” Puppet replied. 

“Nonsense, the mission is life,” the Major said with a salute. It was different than the Thonoca one I knew. With a straight hand to the forehead. 

“How about we hear what happened, Master has been wondering how you got out of the Valley,” I said to keep the conversation moving. 

“Yes, Ma’am. We pursued two fleeing necromancers on the Creator’s orders. They were in the middle of a spell or ritual when we attacked and the next thing we knew we arrived at a ruin. There were several undead and the two necromancers, but we managed to defeat them, while only losing one unit. Once all hostile forces were eliminated, we destroyed the method they used to attack the Valley. While clearing the ruins, we found nearly two hundred hostages that were being used to power the ruin’s teleporter.”

The wolf beastman cut in there, “We really are thankful to this group,” he said surprisingly articulate, “we were slaves bought by the bloody necros to be sacrificed!” He gestured to his chest, “with this thing, even if we went to a city we would just go back to the markets, so we decided to stick with this group.”

“Co-Mayor Hiden has been most helpful in keeping the mortals co-operating. We soon realized that we wouldn’t last long outside of the Creator’s aura when an Auxiliary unit had an idea. We absorbed some mana from the mortals and were able to keep functioning,” The Major continued, “Then we found this place which let both of our peoples co-exist even more.”

“What’s special about this location?” Puppet asked.

“A well-spring of mana, a naturally occurring phenomenon. We are able to absorb the mana from this spring and remain functioning. In fact, just yesterday the auxiliary unit just finished building a device that would absorb some of the excess mana and send it to the automata in the village.”

“Amazing, Father did say he was gaining mana from your unit, but he wasn’t sure the reason,” Puppet said.

“We are still helpful to the Creator! The others will be pleased to hear this,” The Major said. 

We listened to a few more reports of how the situation was before we hit on another issue that had been raised while we traveled through the forest. 

“The patrols that we can manage have not found any monsters within a 150-kilometer radius. The mortals have managed to go a bit further, but it is dangerous to go too south. Recently, the mortals haven’t been able to leave the village in case Zothun encounters them.”

“Zothun?” I asked.

“A land dragon that claims the area a bit to the west as his territory,” Hiden volunteered. 

“Ah, we met him, he seemed… hungry,” I said, the image of the dominant figure walking away coming to mind. 

“That would be correct. He needs magical meat, monsters to sate his hunger. All that’s in the forest in this area now are regular game,” Hiden explained.

Once we were finished, I pulled the others to the side, “I think we should plant one of Master’s cores here. I feel like this mana spring would be beneficial to him.”

Puppet thought for a moment before he replied, “I agree, we had planned on planting one within a thousand kilometers anyways. I gauge us to be around six hundred or so, after factoring in how far we traveled with the bikes.”

“The sooner I see Father again, the better,” Z2 voiced curtly. 

“I feel like I’m going to need a bigger gun as well,” Natsuko said. I guess the encounter with the dragon had bothered her as well. Natsuo just nodded. 

We moved over to the Mayors and got their approval. The Major was excited, to say the least. He led us over to the mana spring. A large pond that had steam rising out of it soon entered my vision. A few automata were sitting in the water as well. To the side, a… structure of some sort stood that had two pipes leading into the water. I wasn’t sure how it functioned, but I could see a slight build up of mana as we approached the structure. 

An automaton that stood next to the structure noticed us and made his way over, “I heard the Lords had finally come. This is so exciting! I hope the Creator is pleased with what I have made!” He said as he rubbed his hands excitedly. He had on a white cloth that had a bunch of tools in nearly a dozen or so pockets. 

“I’m sure Master will be pleased with you. You basically kept all your brothers alive all this time,” I assured him.

“Thank you Lady Azra! When we became trapped over on this side, it was like something opened in my head, and I just had all these ideas. Several of the others also became… more after a while.”

“That’s amazing, Master will be fascinated by your bunch, I’m sure. We want to plant one of his sub-cores so that he will be able to come here,” I said and pulled out the canister, “I was thinking at the center of the mana spring, as you call it.”

“Of course! Of course! That would probably be the best, it produces out a lot of mana.”

I moved over to the pond and jumped in. I was able to walk most of the way, but near the center, there was a deep drop off, and I couldn’t tell how far it went. I swam to what I thought was the center and used my tail to stay afloat while I opened the canister. I gently set the crystal on the surface of the water where it stayed without moving. I quickly swam back to the shore not sure what might happen.

A few moments later I felt a surge of mana rush from the core. It almost left like I was hit with a solid object as I was pushed back a few meters. The core suddenly shot into the air and was soon out of sight with the sunlight hiding it. I wasn’t sure how high it went before I saw something start to descend towards us. More than descending it looked like it was being grown from mid-air. Seven… pillars soon collided with the ground, forming a rough circle around the pond that encompassed nearly 200 meters by my rough estimate. 

The pillars angled towards a single point where they fused and became what looked like a tower. This tower was nothing like I had ever seen before. It seemed to be made out of some type of metal and had whole sections that seemed to be made out of glass. There was so much of it. Soon the tower grew and at the top flowed out like a mushroom and made a platform that had to be several hundred, if not more meters in diameter. I was amazed at the power of the Master from watching the display. 

The automata of the village had gathered around and had their heads bowed in what seemed to be respect or prayer. The mortals had also gathered around, but they were more in shock and awe than worship, which was probably for the best. I also noted a few people had fear on their faces but who wouldn’t be afraid when a mountain basically appeared in front of you. A moment later, a familiar feeling washed over me, and I knew that the Master had arrived.