Jack’s group made their way quickly to the next kobold village, again it is just a small rocky area that’s located on the plains area. There are a couple of simple structures above the ground but it’s mostly below ground in burrows.

Jack has learnt the kobold language from capturing the previous town so he doesn’t need DeeYo to go in and discuss anything with them, Jack is sitting atop Sleipner quietly overlooking the kobold village, it’s really not noteworthy at all. You could easily overrun the place with 10 well equipped soldiers, it’s that under equipped.

Jack looks towards Drakon who is also overlooking the village, his eyes clearly showing his reptilian heritage able to see much further than Jack. Drakon looks at the village and into the distance, upon seeing nothing worthy of being worried about, he nods to Jack.

Jack quietly pours his qi within the sword and repeats his previous actions, the massive sword light pierces through the air leaving a trail of fire behind it, which yet again morphs into a dragon for a few moments, looking coldly over the village.

Several kobolds left their burrows when they heard the sword light and upon seeing the dragon, raise the alarm causing most other kobolds to leave their burrows. The dragon has disappeared by the time most of them have heard that it’s there causing a lot of confusion. The kobold leader tries to calm down his population but they can’t be calmed down and want to escape the area.

Many dive back into their burrows, others attempt to gather their things in an attempt to leave above ground. The kobold leader upon seeing this disorganised response tries to call for calm again using his special pickaxe on the ground causing a loud sound to resound in the immediate area. All the kobolds know that their leader has a special pickaxe with an explosion spell, many immediately believing that it will be enough to stop the dragon.

The kobolds settle down and become quiet when the sound of horse hooves can be heard approaching the village from the distance, the horse hooves sound much louder than they should. Jack can be seen walking through the village entrance, coldly looking down upon the kobolds.

Many of the kobolds want to attack Jack for his blatant disregard for their village but the leader is holding them back looking at Jack’s cold expression and his aloof attitude as though everything here is beneath him. The kobold leader wants to speak but Jack is the first to speak out, “This dragon envoy has settled on your little village, do you submit or shall I kill you all and go to the next village?” Jack coldly looks towards the kobold leader and then to the rest of the village.

All of the kobolds can feel the pressure coming from his words, several of them just want to outright attack but the kobold leader almost immediately strikes down one of the loudest kobolds, who happened to be his primary opponent for leadership position, before kneeling before Jack on the horse.

“We submit to you Dragon Envoy, please take pity on our small village” the leader speaks out, many of the other kobolds are stunned at this change but they’re a weak-willed species, with all of them kneeling and announcing their loyalty after their leader.

A prompt appears before Jack’s eyes as a smile develops on his face, ‘SYSTEM NOTIFICATION – Brown Burrows Village would like to submit to you, do you accept?’

He quickly accepts the prompt and speaks to the group of kobolds who are looking very uneasy kneeling before Jack, “You are now considered my citizens, you will be well looked after if you do a good job, you will never want for food and water nor shelter and safety. If you break the rules you shall be punished, even if you are a kobold or a god” he repeats what he has said at the previous village.

Many of the kobolds don’t believe his words outright but some of the younglings are excited about the prospects of having ample food, many of them just staring at Jack as though he is a godly figure that just suddenly appeared and rescued them from their mundane and pointless lives.

“Take me to your village heart” Jack commands the kobold leader, ignoring all of the other kobolds.

The kobold leader gives a salute as he stands up from kneeling and leads Jack to the city heart. Jack asks a few questions of the kobold leader, he is called ‘Patux’, he only recently became the leader of this village because the previous leader was killed by some goblins from the United Goblin Town.

There was a split in this kobold village with many wanting to go and attack the United Goblin town with other smaller villages in the area but Patux didn’t believe it was good idea and luckily was able to rally more support than the people that wanted to attack, the kobold that he killed was the leader of attack faction and his primary opponent.

Jack almost feels sorry for this kobold village, they recently lost their leader because of the goblin town and now he is here to take over the whole village. Jack quickly captures the village heart and stores it away, he tells Patux to gather all of their things in preparation for moving their location and tells them where the other kobold village is so that they can congregate together.

Jack no longer really cares about this village, it’s just a rocky area with a bunch of holes going into the ground there isn’t anything left for him to do here, he decides that it will act as a test to see if the kobolds actually turn up at the gathering location, he already has their city heart and will be able to spawn in more kobolds eventually if they run off.

He leaves a few words to Patux and leaves to the next kobold village where it essentially goes the same, sometimes killing a kobold or two that is too rowdy and getting the entire group into submission via the appearing dragon.

Jack has taken over 2 more kobold villages taking the total to 4, giving him a kobold population of nearly 250. His empire could at this point be called a kobold empire technically but Jack doesn’t mind as that will change before too long.

Jack is currently riding back to the first kobold village while he is playing with a small sphere in his hands, he acquired this at the last kobold village. It’s something that they had recently dug up and weren’t able to identify but could feel something strange about it, Jack with his system was able to identify it instantly:

Star Goddess Statue: Level 1, Description: A statue of a Star Goddess. It can provide bonuses depending on which star shines upon the land. It requires sacrifices of incense, and the more incense there is, the more powerful the Star Goddess Statue will become. Current stats: Gives Star Goddess’s protection and resistance to natural disasters +1%.

He’s rather curious as to how this small sphere is a statue, perhaps the Star Goddess is from a race of spheres that obtained consciousness and that’s why it’s like this or perhaps it’s just in the form of a star. Putting the ‘statue’ away Jack is starting to feel like he needs some better storage system currently everything is either hanging off Sleipner or within a pocket.

Lost in his thoughts about what sort of storage options are available he doesn’t notice a shadowy figure in a tree near him, Drakon does notice this and quickly sets into action but before he can do anything, the shadowy figure jumps onto Jack.

Jack is starting to panic, Sleipner is freaking out and running while bucking trying to shake this person off but some vines start to slowly twine around Jack as a small mouth can be felt on his arm biting into him, he can feel his blood being drained away from this bite and the vines that are coming from nowhere.

Jack tries to struggle free but he is unable to do anything, he can start to feel his body becoming weaker from the loss of blood. He tries to call upon the fire qi within his body, circulating it up veins into his hands but the vines seemingly sense this and absorb the qi. Jack starts to circulate his qi faster hoping that the vines won’t be able to take all of it.

Unfortunately, the vines are able absorb all the qi that he pours into them. Jack tries both type of fire qi but with the same result, the vines are just able to absorb everything. Jack’s mind starts to race, he doesn’t want to die here.

He starts to call upon the final star on his forehead that contains anything, the slight demonic qi he absorbed from the crystal the demonic sheep gave him. This qi starts to circulate in his body but he isn’t prepared for it, his mind becomes frenzied and almost crazy as his body starts to transform, his teeth grow longer and pointed, his nails grow longer as his skin and hair change into a blood red colour.

The vines recoil from this and slightly loosen, Jack attempts to break free with this slight slackening slashing at the vines with his now extended nails, Jack attempts to slash at the person that is biting his arm but quickly stays his hand upon seeing what it is.

It’s just a little girl, she looks to be around 7 years old with strange looking hair, she is currently hugging Jack’s arm tightly biting into his bicep, luckily the white snake is currently within the sword or it might have been bitten. The girl has long dark green hair while wearing barely any clothing, that is made of plant materials.

Jack’s mind slowly reverts to normal as he loses the demonic form that appeared over his body, he doesn’t know what to do because he can feel that this girl isn’t acting maliciously but she is absorbing a lot of Jack’s blood. Attempting to pull her off using his free arm yielding no results, Drakon catches up to Jack quickly holding out his sword in preparation for separating the two.

“Wait!” Jack almost yells out, he doesn’t want Drakon to hurt the girl. Drakon looks at Jack strangely but listens to what he has been told putting away his sword. Drakon then attempts to pull the girl away from Jack’s arm but with no result, the girl has a ridiculously tight hold on Jack.

“Mai! Where are you Mai?!” a female voice can be heard shouting in the distance coming this way. “Mai, you just suddenly ran away without saying anything, do you want to scare your elder sister? It’s working so come out!” she adds while shouting.

Jack’s group is unable to hear her but feeling as though the two are related he decides to yell out, “IF YOU MEAN THIS GIRL THAT IS CURRENTLY ATTACHED TO MY ARM, I WOULD APPRECIATE SOME HELP!”.

No sooner than he finished speaking, a woman can be seen appearing in a tree close by. She looks mid-20s, she has long black hair with a purple tinge to it with a generally attractive appearance. Jack is slightly mesmerised by her hair; he has always liked that black-purplish colour. In fact, one of the primary reasons he met his first girlfriend was because of her hair being like this. Jack wants to speak out to her but she speaks before him, “Mai! What are you doing?” she asks towards Jack, obviously speaking towards the girl attached to his arm.

She disappears from the tree and appears before Jack looking at the girl, she is very strong just from this act of teleportation so Jack doesn’t try to revolt and lets her do as she pleases, “Mai! Mai, can you hear me?” the woman now asks the girl worried, looking at Jack with slight hatred thinking that he caused this.

Jack can see this change in her expression as she looks at him and attempts to explain, “We were just riding when she suddenly jumped onto my arm and did this, can you do something about her because she’s taking a lot of my blood?” he tries to explain while showing that he has nothing to hide.

The woman furrows her brows and looks at the girl again, reaching up and trying to pull her from Jack’s arm but the girl just holds on tighter trying to fight this pull. “What did you do to her?” the woman asks Jack, clearly angry for some reason.

“Nothing at all, she’s just drinking my blood for some reason can you take her off as I don’t have much blood left” Jack says while his body is becoming weaker, his face becoming pale and anaemic from the blood loss. The woman steps into the air, reaching out to the girl’s head as the woman’s hand slightly glows causing the girl to lose her grip on Jack and the bite stopping.

The girl yawns and looks at Jack and then the woman who has a serious and angry expression on her face, “Oh elder sister! Why are you here?” the girl says between yawns and licking Jack’s arm as though he is a tasty meal.

“Don’t Oh me, Mai! Do you know who that man is?” the woman asks, ignoring that she’s standing almost next to Jack.

The girl shakes her head, “No…. but he is just so tasty…” the girl responds through yawns and starting to suck on the open wound on Jacks arm again. The woman sighs and tries to pull the girl away from Jack, it’s met with a tantrum as the girl desperately tries to keep clinging to Jack.

Vines start to twine around Jack again but this time they aren’t absorbing his essence, they’re just trying to latch onto him and Sleipner. The woman continues to pull the girl away but after one of the vines snaps, stops trying to pull and doesn’t know what to do.

Jack doesn’t know what to do either, the girl luckily has stopped drinking his blood and is almost asleep attached to his arm. He attempts to resolve the situation, “Uhh, it’s ok if she sleeps there, she just needed to stop drinking my blood….” Jack explains scratching his head with his free hand, the woman looks at him suspiciously so he adds, “Why don’t you follow us and wait until she wakes up?”.

The woman harrumphs, “This sovereign doesn’t need you to tell her what to do, you lowly humans have always feared the strong so it should be this sovereign telling you what to do” the woman speaks to Jack with an overbearing tone.

“So, what do you want to do, all mighty sovereign?” Jack asks with a sardonic smile towards the woman. The woman is slightly stunned for a moment, she hasn’t thought that far ahead she only spoke that line because humans will usually fear and respect her going out of their way to appease her.

She stops for a few moments to ponder before quietly saying, “This sovereign will follow you…. to make sure you aren’t…. doing anything bad!” the woman speaks while considering what to say, she doesn’t want to admit that she is doing what Jack had suggested.

Jack has a chuckle inwardly at this line, he is curious as to who this woman is but he can tell the sort of woman she is, the girl attached to his arm is now fast asleep but the vines are still holding onto his arm tightly.

“If we’re going to be travelling together for some time, we should get to know each other. My name is Jack Hunt, I guess you could say that I’m a player, who are you?” Jack asks the woman; she turns up her nose at his question.

“You lowly human do not deserve to know this sovereign’s name but as you do have a good point, I shall humble myself and let you know my name, it is Leah…..” she trailed off at the end and Jack was unable to hear her last name, “Human, you shall call me sovereign or Sovereign Leah if you know what’s good for you!” the woman coldly snorts towards Jack as she finishes her sentence.

“Oh… Leah, nice name….” Jack mutters ignoring her last line. The woman blushes as she hears Jack repeating her name in a daze, if she was able to, she would just kill this human because he would just respawn anyways but she can’t because Mai is sleeping attached to him.

Jack and Leah both look towards Mai sleeping on his arm after which their eyes meet for a slight moment, Leah averts her eyes quickly blushing softly upon meeting Jacks causing him to chuckle. Jack then orders the group to continue, Leah is stepping in the air next to Sleipner, watching Jack to make sure he doesn’t do anything to Mai.

“Leah… no Sovereign Leah, why don’t you have a seat behind me so that you don’t have to walk like that”

She looks at him, he has a slightly sly smile but upon seeing her sister nestled into Jack’s arm she feels it is appropriate, “You should feel honoured that this sovereign is willing to be seated near you smelly human” she says while taking a seat behind Jack keeping her distance.

Jack starts to laugh loudly, he feels like he’ll have fun teasing this woman in future because she seems to put up a tough front but is actually very soft, especially towards her sister. The group make their way back to the first kobold village with two new additions.