Spirit Taming

Chapter 693: unfortunate Information

The day went by fairly quickly. By the time the sun was setting, the entire group plus Purple and Illia had managed to meet at the front gate area of Aphelion City.

Through their long walk throughout the city, they had seen more than what had been expected.

As the academy grounds were the focus of what needed to be repaired first, they had not expected to see much improvement when it came to the majority of homes or otherwise. Yet, there had been a massive difference.

The merchant district had greatly changed. They merchants getting news before many others had proven to be the key to everything there. This was simply because there were many merchants looking to take a chance on expanding their futures. They could come to this city that was benign, reborn and build their legacy.

Therefore, new warehouses were rented while new shops were being built from the damaged ones. The families that had lost members in those places had the gold coins from selling that property to rebuild their homes or to move elsewhere. But where things truly shined were the families that were able to step up with their own connections in that tragedy.

Stored goods were brought out and given to help neighbors repair. This had made many of the smaller family businesses that had once been reppresed to take a massive spotlight. They gained the support of many. They gained their own roots that would withstand many of the traveling merchants attempting to do more than what they had already done.

Seeing that some merchants were already gathering and selling some goods on top of them giving amazing discounts to those who needed items to help others, was inspiring. It made Isa stop in her tracks and give up any attempts to step in herself. She also knew what would happen when her family returned fully.

There was a major chance that her family would struggle to compete with a few of the new niche markets that had popped up. But not a single bit of that made her unhappy. She was glad that she could just focus on the beast plan side of things since that was the business she had laid claim to already.

The majority of housing districts had also made massive leaps and bounds. Specifically by breaking down the corrupted family mansions. The literal excess that had come from these massive mansions had left a lot of wasted space and materials that were never used.

The Mourne family had many properties that were not unused since the members and followers that had lived there were imprisoned, dead, or fled for their lives after their crimes were revealed. This caused the materials for rebuilding to spike in number.

It also managed to create many open spaces. Places that could be used for building new homes, new squares, and possibly parks for different species of beasts. One of the major ideas floating around was held by the white robed healers. They wanted to connect themselves with Aphelion and the universal alliance entirely.

Their idea had been to make these herb fields for alchemists to make healing potions or other similar things. Otherwise, they wanted to set up free healing buildings. They could create gardens around them while the buildings would be for the general public to come and have themselves healed. They would only accept donations.

It was an idea that has gained traction with the general public very quickly. Not only because they wished to heal the many wounded that had come from this major battle. It was also because they had heard of the new strengths that healers could have. the risks of being one were lesser than they had once been.

Maria was a living testament to this. Especially since there was not a major family trying to talk everyone out of being a healer with force. It also meant that if this was a regulated aspect of life in the city, then there would not be brutal pricing on healing. It would be accessible to everyone. No matter their standing or their riches in the city.

Other noticeable areas of change were the gates and walls themselves. The guards that had been true to protecting the city had taken the stand as new captains. They were leading guards from many families and training new ones. Because the gates had mostly been damaged, they had taken the chances to reclaim proper training grounds.

Each gate would have their own training ground that would focus on the section of the city. It was a divided guard force that would rotate slowly. The idea was to train each guard to face the specific threats that came from each direction.

Areas with more trade routes might attract more thieves. Areas with more travelers in to the wilderness would have more beast pests to handle. These simple ideas were just half of what else could be brought up as issues that guards could learn through a full yearly rotation around the city.

This would also increase the training rate since the guards would have to adapt consistently to different situations. It would mean a much safer city in the long run. Beyond that, they would need to interact with the general public and visitors more often. That would lead to a generally more friendly community for everyone.

They knew who was protecting them and the guards knew who they were protecting.

"You all seem very happy with the changes. But why did-"

"Jerold, I noticed you a while ago, but you were having so much fun with the partner that I couldn't distract you. But what is that little egg?" Clark stopped Jerold right then and there. But everyone else stopped talking and chatting about the city immediately.

"What? Did you all not notice that Jerold snuck in between all of us to walk with us through the city before we got here? He showed up hours ago. Just wanted to keep training since we were checking everything out." Clark shrugged. He wasn't going to tell anyone that he had used his special skills to spot Jerold while they moved.

To be fair, Jerold had just been in the way of one of the things that Clark was curious about. The armored chameleons' invisibility camouflage had definitely improved. More than just hiding in plain sight, Clark could tell that the chameleon in armor form was able to even hide Jerold's scent now. It was a major advancement for him when it came to scouting an area secretly.

The small white egg that Jerold was holding also had some information that Clark was hiding from the others. He knew that Jerold might want to keep it that way until he broke the news.

"Well, this little egg is a sky jay egg. It's a wind and light type beast that will mimic the color of the sky using the light energy that it gathers. Then it uses wind energy to fly silently above. It will allow me to scout about the world better than what I was able to do before."

"When I went out with the scouts, they said that I was too limited. They all mostly have beasts for specific tasks, but they said if I wanted to be a solo scout, that I needed more than one beast. I can hide myself, but I can't scout the bigger picture from the ground or hide myself in the sky to get over some of the harder terrain we might face."

"They also grow larger to the size of a hawk but can still stay silent and invisible in the sky. So they will be the best scouting partner for me and my armored chameleon." The armored chameleon eyed the egg as if it saw the potential more than even Jerold did.

"You should also feed it some water crystals. Just in case you want it to take an alternate form as the bright cloud jay. Then it will be able to withstand the storms we might travel in. not to mention hide inside and outside of them." Clark casually let this information take up a little of the attention.

However, he did not remember to keep it from Ella who already had a journal taken out and being tossed to him. Clark had stuck himself in that one.

"What else did you do? How was scouting? What did you learn?" Maria was more focused on what else the group of scouts may have come back with. Especially since they had been trying to ascertain more information about the blood moon cult.

"Well, that's the issue. The members of the blood moon cult that were in the area, died. They all appeared to have killed themselves so that they couldn't be followed. Or they were killed by their leaders. They covered all their tracks to keep whatever their main base was safe." This news was not what anyone wanted to hear. But they could trust that Jerold had done is best along with the other scouts.