When the morning came, Cray was awakened by the sound of an alarm that rang continuously for more than a minute. At first, he felt annoyed by it until he took notice of the fact that this alarm was too loud to just be awakening him so he reluctantly got out of the bed and made the decision to head outside his room.
As he got dressed, he noticed how his body had changed compared to just a few days ago. His arms were firmer and his legs tougher, the changes were minute but he could still feel how much his body had improved.
When he went out he was surprised as he could no longer see the previous scene of drunk people that had littered the night before, instead what he saw had overwhelmed him as the presence of the marching Ye Clan's Soldiers passed by him.
Every one of them was armed to the brim and was emitting a fierce aura. For Cray this was an entirely new experience, the reason being was that even though he had seen soldiers from the empire he had never seen them looking so...different. By this he meant their looks, he was not used to seeing a bunch of Eastern-looking people gathering all in one place. He was perplexed and in awe yet amused all at the same time.
Since his room was near a balcony he saw this magnificent scene of the Ye Clan getting ready for a fight. He then saw them uniformly filed and was moving at the same time.
Soon roars began to echo from the outer walls as the artillery had started to fire at the incoming enemies.
This marvelous site had made Cray breathless as explosions ensued one after another. While he was looking at this mouth open, Stan had happened to pass by and saw Cray looking in awe at the war that was happening right in front of him.
Stan then chuckled and jerked Cray's shoulder. "Never seen warfare conducted like this before, have you?"
Cray then noticed Stan's presence and immediately woke up from his earlier daydream. He then shook his head and said, "I've never even seen the empire use this kind of weapons as most of them would only be carrying some swords and would only seldomly carry guns."
Stan then looked at the sight and explained, "Well obviously you won't see the empire using those. If I remember you used to live in the outer zone of the Western Continent, right?" Cray nodded his head in agreement.
"You still remember those monsters that we escaped from last time? The truth was that most of the bullets that were used back then were weak enough that it can barely scratch the thick skins of those monsters, much less kill them. They would only work if they are embedded with runes. That would be one of the reasons as to why you haven't seen human warfare before."
With just these simple words Cray immediately figured out the clue that Stan had given him. "Since using bullets embedded with runes would only consume lots of resources and work then it would only be natural to use cold weapons that would mostly not be discarded after one use." After hearing Cray murmuring this Stan nodded and then continued his explanation by taking out his dagger from its scabbard.
He then brandished it in front of Cray. "See this? This weapon is embedded with runes. There are four runes placed here. Now imagine putting out at least one rune into every bullet that you use before every battle. Do take note, this would only work for some monsters as some of them can be stronger and might need more runes embedded to hurt them.
Cray then noticed a small detail based on how Stan was talking. He thought that even though the Empire being a strong power that it is, didn't even embed their bullets with runes then this might simply mean that embedding those runes is hard. But then since he had no idea how those runes were embedded in the first place so he asked Stan for confirmation.
"Is embedding runes that hard? I mean, since even though the Empire has large resources they'd still avoid the use of embedding runes on bullets even though that might make the fighting easier.
Hearing this question Stan simply laughed. He then answered the ignorant Cray, "Embedding runes are not hard, not at all. The term hard is not enough to describe the actual difficulty of crafting one."
After giving Cray this quick lecture he then yawned and invited Cray for breakfast. Cray soon heard the rumblings on his stomach as he gave a smile. Now that he had thought of it, he was hungry.
After following Stan down the hall, he was still curious about the battle that was happening just outside of the castle so he asked Stan if he was worried about it.
Stan quickly responded to him with a scoff, "Those bastards wouldn't even die even if you kill them. Don't worry about it." Cray was surprised to hear this much scorn from Stan so he reminded himself not to ask anything else regarding that topic.
Upon reaching a large room that was filled with tables and chairs, Stan took his seat at a table that was unoccupied and told Cray to wait for him while he gets the food.
After a couple of steps that Stan had taken from the table, the whole castle had shaken along with the ground as a huge explosion occurred.
The people around them quickly ducked to the floor while some held onto the strong walls to help themselves from falling.
Cray, on the other hand, had unwittingly bumped his head on the table and felt the pain on his forehead.
After the momentary panic, most of the people regained their cool when another alarm had sounded within the castle. This time the intervals of every beep were quicker and this sound seemed to give out even more pressure. The people who were previously sitting around eating their breakfast quickly ran towards the exit.
Stan was also going to head out but then he saw Cray and was reminded that he had no idea what was happening right now. He clicked his tongue and grabbed Cray's hand and told him to ask questions later.
Stan was soon reminded about what he had just said to Cray earlier regarding the fate of the ones who were currently fighting outside. He knew what the alarm meant and was regretting previously saying those words because deep inside he still cared for those of the Chen Clan despite how he disliked some of them.