Why Did You Summon Me?

Baiyi decided that there were two conclusions that could be made about the augury he had just received: one, Baiyi had gotten it all wrong, and the War God was just humoring him with some token prophecy stereotype while leaving Baiyi to solve it all alone. The other possibility was that the War God was using this as a backhanded way to say Baiyi was correct, with the additional request that he go right into the heart of the issue.

After some thoughts, Baiyi was inclining to the second conclusion purely because of the last line before the War God left Attie’s body: ” be ready”. That was an ominous warning that would not have been necessary if the War God was being perfunctory.

However, that only left one with the follow-up question:  be ready for what? Be ready with what? There was never a straight answer from these gods, was there? Giving out vague instructions had always been a god’s forte, huh?

Baiyi really wanted to handwave the last warning away by reminding himself that the War God was infamous for being a wordy nag, which meant he might have added the last line because he simply “could not help saying a few more words” before he left, which subsequently fooled Baiyi into thinking there was more to it than there really was. However, the War God may have been known for enjoying a chat  too much as well as had a questionable sense of fashion (and maybe other issues too), but he had always been friendly and helpful to Baiyi. At the end of the day, Baiyi believed that his divine friend was not the type to fool around on an important matter.

Besides, regardless of his interpretations, Baiyi was sure that the most obvious gist behind the War God’s words was that he simply  must go to Duat.

“Urgh, I have to go to some dumpster littered with bones? Disgusting. I can feel the reluctance in my  own bones already… I’m asking for a raise from the Empire for this,” Baiyi mused to himself, standing up from his seat at Attie’s bed to get to her desk so that he could draft a letter to the Southern Duke to remind his friend to demand more rewards on his behalf.

Baiyi had not even started writing when his eyes caught the sight of an opened diary nearby. He took a brief glance and saw this entry:

October 21st. Sunny. Feeling sunny too. 

Finally, this trip is over. I was tired and I was aching for a long nap, but it was not the time. My sisters were coming to my house for a gathering, and I just wanted to make them something scrumptious… as many as possible. I haven’t seen them in a while! I bet they miss my cooking, heh heh.

Everyone was full by the end of the meal—we were all so satisfied! Hmm… Mia is going to leave for her excursion soon with Mordred (of all people). I’m… worried about them. I’m so worried, I really thought I should lend her my War God’s Sword, but I’m not sure if Master and Lord War God will agree…

Master had come to see me at night. I’m so happy! I love my Master so much! …But he stayed only for a while; He didn’t even stay for the night… Seriously! Am I really not his type after all? He just dotes on Mia all the time! But then again, I did hear rumors that he liked girls with short stature, so maybe it’s because of my height. He doesn’t like me anymore because of how tall I’ve become! Sobs, what do I do?

Attie wrote her diary in standard Southerner language, which moved Baiyi—as well as embarrassed him a little. Since he was not the type to snoop on someone else’s privacy, Baiyi did not flip to the previous pages nor had he gotten any idea when did his Kitty Cat Maid started keeping a diary.

Her new hobby was quite curious, of course, because she started one as someone who was unnecessarily against writing essays as if every single character in a text was written by expending her own life force. Sometimes, instead of an actual essay, she would just hand in her homework with a cat drawn on it…

Now, look at her! She had grown up from being his Kitty Cat Maid to a docile, understanding, good girl who put others before herself and takes great pains in taking care of others. A girl like her was just adorable.

On that thought, Baiyi made a change in his decision. He finished his letter in a whiff—with no explicit demands in his letter so that the Southern Duke himself could raise his reward however he saw fit—and then transformed the letter into a messenger pigeon with magic to have his letter sent. After that, he found himself back to Attie’s bed and sat quietly, waiting for her to recover.

It was the next morning when Attie finally opened her eyes. The first thing she saw after her eyes flutter open was Baiyi sitting on a side. “M-master?” She blurted in shock.

“Yes, it’s me. I worry for your health, so I decided not to leave until you’re up,” Baiyi replied sympathetically. “How are you feeling Better? Is your head still spinning?”

She shook her head grinned sweetly. “No problem at all. Lord War God takes great are of me, you know.”

Then she looked down, lifting the edge of her blanket and gave a quick glance. Seeing that her clothes were far from a mess, an upset look instantly surfaced on her face.

Really?! You had hoped for some sort of immoral development?!

After consoling and teasing Attie for a while, Baiyi finally took his leave. He had a lot more to do, and with one night spent tending to Attie, his schedule had become quite tight.

Of course, Baiyi wanted to emphasize that by “spent” he meant his time was spent and not something else,  just to be clear. 

Duat was not going to be an easy trip for him, so Baiyi had better geared up and be much prepared. Before that, however, there was something else that took precedence—today was his youngest daughter, Mia’s, day of departure. Since he was in Da Xue at the moment, there was no reason for him to not see her off.

However, Baiyi rather saw them off from far than to make a direct appearance so that his students’ moods would not be affected. He watched from his spot as the students gathered in a large square, with Mia and Mordred standing the frontmost, their expression solemn.

Mordred has eschewed the loli form she had used whenever she was alone with her sisters and had opted for the appearance of a beautiful adolescent clad in grey-white armor. On her hands was a helmet with two horns on a side—it was a gift from Baiyi for her fortieth birthday. Seeing Baiyi as a walking set of armor, the girl had used being Baiyi’s daughter as an excuse to have her own set of armor as well.

Baiyi had not denied her request. He gathered all kinds of the best materials he knew, with a sizeable amount of them being newly synthesized materials courtesy of the Alchemist Walker, and finally, with the Engineer as the executive designer, the Blacksmith had forged Mordred the armor she was donning now over the span of three months.

There were quite a few advanced technologies being used in that armor. A few examples included autopilot, intelligent defense activation (whereby the armor erected defensive mechanism around its wearer automatically when it danger), appearance transformation, etc. The armor would even make smart adjustments to its size and shape when Mordred turned into a dragon while wearing it.

In conclusion, an armor crafted from the brains and hands of three Voidwalkers who were all separately known as the best of their respective trades was bound to be an anachronistic product more sci-fi than it should have been; WIth its capabilities, this single armor was no less powerful than actual divine regalias. It was a hefty, lavish gift that had demanded much time and effort to put together, and it was the true basis behind the “hi-tech battlesuit” whatchamacallit the Engineer and the Blacksmith had mentioned the other day.

It was something that even Voidwalkers themselves had never gotten to use, and here the troublemaking punk owned it just by asking. Of course, the Voidwalkers were better than harping on it, too, since they possessed powers and skills so great that many of the additional features of the armor would be rendered obsolete, anyway.

Besides, their ultimate goal was to  not inhabit an armor forever, so of course, they were not too concerned on the tiers of the armors they were currently using as bodies, as long as the armors worked as they should.

As for Baiyi himself? Well, seeing Mordred clad in that armor today while standing next to Mia made Baiyi felt like everything was worth it after all. There was nothing more valued than safety, and that armor guaranteed that.

Standing at the farthest end of the formation of students and teachers were a row of magical marionettes, courtesy of the Faculty of Engineering; Above them, five enormous dragons soared and raced, brought by the Faculty of Dragon-riding; Now, combined all of these with Mia and Mordreds powers as well as the decent combat skills of normal teachers  with an addition of the students, who had their basics down right as well as each equipped with some sort of personal skills and talents, this little group with less than a thousand people probably possessed more firepower than many of the armies in this world. One could even just use them on a battle!

Sometimes Baiyi wondered if it ever came a day when he and the Empire finally declared war with each other. All he had to do was to summon every student and staffer in Da Xue as well as the additional resources he had, and he was sure that the Voidwalkers might not even be needed to win the war—even if the Empire could probably boast about manpower.

Nah. It was all just some fun what-if. If Baiyi and the Empire had to fight, not all of his students would gladly stand on his side, too. He would be losing a lot of skillful fighters on his side.

With the preparation done, the students started towards the transporting portal that was going to send them to the micro-realm for their practical training. Mia and Mordred was the last to leave as they took the last line; But before they stepped into the transporting portal, they turned, waving at Baiyi, their face blossoming into a toothy, satisfied grin.

They disappeared into the portal.

With her daughters now gone, Baiyi moved on to his own task at hand. This time, he had decided to bring a few companions with him, since these undead creatures seemed to have obtained partial control over the Laws, making them dangerous enemies.

The Lich Walker, the necromancy extraordinaire, was definitely in the roster, though bringing this guy would automatically remove any possibility of the Paladin, the Cleric, or anyone else in the Light side from joining. Hence, Baiyi could only choose the rest of his roster from Camp Neutral, such as Sir Hitman; Then, seeing that he might need to have some impromptu discussion and research right there and then, Baiyi decided that he needed to take a brain with him—since his own teacher was likely disinterested in this affair, he opted for the old geezer to guard Da Xue while the Scholar came along. Lastly, he needed a few support types with him for good measure, and he was okay with either the Engineer or the Blacksmith since the two of them had both crafted some nifty new toys over these ten years. In the end, however, Baiyi thought that the Blacksmith’s creations were more capable of handling endless hordes of undead, so he picked the Blacksmith instead.

As for the female Walkers… well, he would just have to wait for the three of them to discuss on their own. The girls had a strict observance of whose turns to Pseudo-Descend and other assortments of rules, which Baiyi had not much say in, other than asking the Fairy Walker to  not make an appearance—the location they were heading to was already precarious on its own, so he did not want a calamity magnet like the Fairy to add more into the heap. He was secretly hoping that it would be the Assassin in the end, since he may need someone to help him gather intel. Sure, he had the Hitman—who had always pride himself as a world-class assassin in his own rights—with him, but that man only knew how to  hit things and not much anything else. Baiyi admitted that the Hitman was probably best used as a tank and a bullet-bait, whereby he was used to attract the heaviest attacks so that the rest of the team could be spared.

Just like that, Baiyi had more or less decided on his roster: the Lich, the Hitman, the Scholar, the Blacksmith, and The Warrior-slash-the-Assasin (pick one). With himself, they had formed a six-man band.

Baiyi had also thought about the amount of energy these six individuals may expend for the fight, so he was going to bring that Divine Energy Crystal he had picked up from the epic battle with the Abyss Lord/God hybrid, which he had charged continuously for over ten years. As they had not used this particular Energy Crystal once within the period of ten years, Baiyi was sure that it was close to being in full capacity. In fact, the erstwhile lustrous, see-through crystal had now become a large bloc of icky blackness!

It was time for them to finally put this back-up energy for good use.