'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 3: The Prophecy

Militiamen

I walked over to the outdoor kitchen area where Heather was there and she was surprised to see me smiling away as I walked near her.

"What's with that smile on your face, dear?" She asked and I replied, "It's nothing dear, just an accomplishment that I had achieved so far to reward the Shadow unit members, not through monetary rewards but through something more valuable than life itself."

"What could that be? You seemed awfully cheerful today, innit?"

"Why should I not be cheerful, since I had managed to make some new set of armour for the Shadow unit members and they were more than happy to receive them."

"Oh... Tell me more about it." Inquired Heather as she had just finished washing her hands after she had cleaned the Spanish mackerels that she had bought from the grocery store earlier.

"It's like this... I went to the realm..." I started to tell her in details and this piqued her interest very much. Even though she can't enter the realm at this moment but she would be able to in time to come once I get stronger and being able to piggyback someone through.

"So the Shadow units were now equipped with the Reinforced Steel Mesh Armour, is that it? A machine that could do all the work and all you have to do is to press a few buttons and turn a few dials. Superb...!"

Heather was delighted and somehow she was interested to know that there's more inside the realm that it should be especially the beauty and health products.

"So once you had made some enhancements to the Shadow units, you would be getting the militia to be upgraded next, an I right dear?"

"Yeah... I won't be long, I just inform you when I need to meditate and then I would be heading down to the realm. Once I get the hang of it, I would merely spend a mere 15 minutes inside there and out. Besides, the machines are doing the work for me and so I would be at ease in the real world here."

"That's good to hear, dear. Do you share your experiences with the Priest and Priestess as well?"

"Not yet, but the time will come pretty soon. Now I need to straighten out what I need to do first and once I had done so, I would be meeting Priest Michael and seek his help. I'm not sure how, but I'm sure he would be able to appraise some of the gemstones that I would bring back to the real world soon. It is a pity that only I would be able to see its effect since we are not living in a mystical world, entirely."

"I get it dear. As long as it doesn't disrupt you from your daily duties, and also not to miss the meals that I would be preparing soon, I guess you would be doing just fine."

Heather grasps the importance of me juggling between the realm and the real world and knew the pressures that I am getting. Furthermore, it would be time for me to run the two rounds of the Obstacle course soon so I would be the best to head down to Innes to get the things I wanted.

"I'm making yard long beans cooked in tangy soup with deep-fried Spanish mackerels. Don't be too long, dear. The twins are hungry now and would need to be fed since we won't want them to choke on the fish bones."

Heather advised me and I waved back to her as I walked to the New Clothing Store to get a set of what the soldiers were wearing.

=*=

"Good morrow Innes. How are you this morning? Could I get from you a set of gugel, long sleeve tunic and pants that the soldiers are wearing right now? From now onwards, you do not have to produce such uniforms from them as u would be taking over them at the moment."

"Oh hello, Your Majesty. Here... There you go. A set of standardised uniform for the soldiers. You are really taking over the production of these uniform, for real?"

Innes asked as I took the set of soldiers uniform from her. The uniform was red and black and it suited well with our colours and indeed I am proud of the workmanship that Innes had done so far with the rest of the sewers.

"That's right, Innes. I would be taking over solely for this set of uniforms. The rest of the uniforms that you have would be sized down as civilian clothes then. Don't you worry, you would still be issuing these sets of uniforms to the new soldiers? At the meantime, I would be reinforcing them. You would see and feel the difference later on."

I replied to her as I took the clothes under my arm and thanked her. She would be surprised that soon the new uniforms would not be able to be trimmed down at all since the blades of the scissors would not even penetrate these steel mesh properly. Hahaha.

I waved my hands at the tailors as I made my way down to the outdoor kitchen area where I had left my handcart there. I asked one of the domain helpers to bring the handcart and the set of soldiers uniform over to the domain while leaving the handcart at the side main entrance of the domain.

Sometimes, instructions would need to be specific or else the domain helpers would bring the handcart to the second level...!

"Dear, I would be running two rounds around the obstacles and then I would head for lunch. Would that be enough time later? Do deep fry the fishes to a deep crisp so I could remove the main spine, head and tail of the fishes and feed the children later on. Off I go now...!"

After saying that, I skipped my way to the Macleod Coliseum and was surprised that there are quite a number of soldiers and also Shadow unit members that carried the sacks of sand behind their backs as they ran the 650 yards before clearing the obstacles.

I picked up a sack of sand and strapped it behind my back as I prepared to run the first 650 yards. The timer had been reset and I soon ran off.

After one round, I was panting and I could feel the strain of all the muscles of my limbs. I knew that I had overexerted them and somehow I would need more plain water with a dash of salt to replenish my loss nutrients. Somehow I knew that it could also alleviate cramping and so does some fruits too.

After resting for a while, I ran the whole obstacles once more and I was literally drenched in my own sweat right till my knickers this time. Even if it is in the middle of autumn, I could feel like it was summertime already...!

After completing the two rounds, I discovered that my timings had improved and shown 8 minutes and 1 second on the latest lap.

Well, it seems that the more rounds I did, the faster my timing would become and I would nevertheless be much stronger. The rope burns in my hands no longer felt painful as the tender palms had now grown a bit coarser.

I hauled back the sack of sand to the starting point and then walked back to the domain where I had a shower and a change of clothes. I wonder if my own set of clothes would be enough to last me the whole day as I would be changing regularly after every two rounds.

In a single day, I practically needed 5 pairs of change...!

I saw the handcart set outside the main entrance of the house and a large serving bowl of yard long beans had been served along with a plate of fresh deeply fried Spanish mackerels. There was also a large serving bowl of hot steaming rice on the dining area of the conference hall.

Heather had just come out with the twins in tow as I had just finished towelling my hair after the quick shower. My stomach was growling like a hungry tiger and I could eat more than usual today.

Practically, having just a light lunch and also a trip to the realm also uses up my internal energy quicker than usual. I wondered if it got to do with mana pool when Ceres suddenly sounded her answer to me and said that mana pool would be used if I were to use the active and semi-passive skills and shouts during a battle but not during meditation.

"Alright... Its time for me to spend some quality time with the twins before I head back to the realm of mind to retrieve the finish products and then make a new set for the soldiers."

"OK, Audemars. For your information, the Reinforced Steel Mesh Armour had been completed and ready to be collected from the realm."

"Thanks for the advise Ceres," I replied telepathically as I headed to the dining area with our twins as I sat them on their highchairs together as we would be having a plate of a meal together, one mouthful after another.

When the twins saw the yard-long beans that had been cooked in a kind of tangy soup and the fish as well, the twins clapped their hands with joy as the helpers helped to clean their hands while I gave a piece of plucked yard long beans for them to munch.

The rice was hot so I blew on it before I fed them with a bit of fish that had the head, tail and spine removed.

As soon as the twin's mouth was stuffed with rice and fish, they pointed at my own mouth and I merrily pushed a whole pile of rice with some fish and vegetables as I munched happily with the twins.

Once they had finished their food in their mouths, they would open them wide and soon another mouthful was fed to them.

Heather was at the sides and was watching me feed the twins as they had missed me for some days already. Being able to eat with me once again was the simplest joys of life they could experience together.

Piles of rice were added and before we knew, we had 3 plates of rice and the twins had already finished their rice but wanted to have the plucked pieces of yard long beans and fish instead. After being fed by me, they wished to feed by themselves on the pieces of fish and vegetables.

After I am done with my own plate of rice, I gave the chef my compliments by burping out loud and the twins soon mimicked me. We had a laugh afterwards and knew they my work is waiting for me.

"Be right back, dear. It won't take too long." I excused myself and went to the balcony where the set of soldier's uniform was placed at the settee.

After settling down cross-legged on the floor at the settee area, I soon closed my eyes and enter my meditative state of mind and soon arrived at my own realm. All the 4 pieces of armour that had been used as the initial sample was removed from the machines and were replaced by the cloth gugel, long sleeve tunic and pants.

Since there was a lot of machines, I decided to make them work together in sync. Instead of making each machine to produce 500 pieces of set each, I first infused a single set with steel plates.

After some time, the three pieces of soldier's uniform had already been successfully infused and now became Reinforced Steel Mesh Cloth Armour. The armour rating for these cloth armours was at +10 which was half of the toughened leather armours before.

But it was better than nothing and I was happy with the results. So after infusing them, I made six duplicates each and I intend to run 9 machines at one time.

After successfully duplicating them, I ensure that the machines were set to the same settings as I placed each piece of cloth armour into the machines and cranked the lever.

These machines were set to run 250 pieces each and it would be a total of 750 gugel, long sleeve tunic and pants.

I retrieved the crates of Reinforced Steel Mesh Leather Armour, dragged it close to me together and soon left my meditative state to return to the real world.

When I opened up my eyes, the four crates filled with the new reinforced armours were in front of me. Since the settee area was organised before I meditated, the area now was a bit disarray because of the 4 large crates...!

I wonder if the helpers would be thinking of how these crates appear out from nowhere.

I called for the helpers to bring the crates one at a time to the windmill area where Eagle and his men were on standby there. It would soon be distributed equally for the Shadow unit members.

Besides, the 9 machines were churning out the new uniforms for the soldiers as since it was made from cloth, the process would be faster.

I joined back at the dining table where I had the urge to grab another plate of rice with another round of vegetables and fish. "You came back so soon? It is not even 10 minutes, dear."

She was surprised when I came back early and was even surprised to know about the time difference in the real world and the realm...!