Origin Seeker

*Fwoosh!*

The 4 archers beside Dream loosed their arrows before he even finished his sentence. And like beams of light, all four arrows headed straight for the demon that failed to kill the fighter.

"Growl..."

Sensing the danger, the assassin demon separated himself from the fighter and disappeared. All four arrows hit the ground only a split second later, exploding with their spells.

"Damn."

The archers cursed having missed their target. While those arrows probably could've killed the assassin, its agility was extremely high and they had to deal with its fast reactions. That was hard to do when they were far away. Their arrows were fast, but not that fast.

But when Dream saw this, he knew he could help. While those archers needed distance to gather power and mana for their arrows, his guns were the opposite. The closer the better. So he dashed over to the airspace above the battle with his flux-railgun, waiting for the assassins to appear again. 

At this point, the demons had lost 8 while the humans had only lost 4. 

*Shing!*

"Shit..."

Dream cursed as the assassins killed another, putting their death count at 5. Though unlike last time, they worked together now, not giving any room for error. 

Seeing this, Dream knew things would only get much worse if they didn't change tactics. Luckily, he had an idea. 

"Everyone, listen up. We need to start doing surprise attacks just like the demons are. Otherwise more of you will die to those assassins. I'm going to coordinate with all of you and give you a target. And on my count, you will all turn your attention and attack that target at once. It'll be exactly like what they're doing. Alright, you should see your target now."

Dream assigned three different targets to each 1/3 of the remaining humans. This would make for three sneak attacks with 10 people each and hopefully, three kills.

"Attack on my mark. 3...2...1...Strike!"

Without words, everyone suddenly turned and jumped on the target in their vision. The three demons were suddenly subjected to the attacks of 10 people each, all of which were stronger than they were. 

The result was as he hoped. 

*Boom!*

*Shing!*

*Splat!*

All three demons died quickly and everyone turned back to their original demon. Although they were all a bit thrown off balance, they quickly got back into the groove. 

"Nice! Alright, settle yourselves. Next target assigned. Let's do it before the assassins come back around. On my count. 3...2...1...Strike!"

*Woosh!*

Everyone suddenly jerked around once more, jumping on their targets like a tiger. Once again the demons were taken off guard and thrown into disarray. And the three target demons were also killed smoothly.

Unfortunately, the assassins had chosen this time to strike once more, and two injured humans who had been concentrating on the target received a knife in their heart, killing them in seconds.

The demon death count was 16, while the human death count was 7. 

But luckily, there were only 8 demons left against 28 humans. This allowed the humans to maintain an absolute advantage as well as to relax and keep their eyes on their surroundings.

And because they had much more room to focus on other things, the next time the assassins came around, they were blocked and countered. In fact, with everyone being as pissed as they were, a group quickly jumped on one of the assassins. This made him unable to disappear and he was quickly killed under the combined fire of several class 4's.

"7 demons...6...5...3...1... all targets dead. Except for the last assassin of course."

"Casting a spell...I see it!"

"Kill the last assassin!"

After a mage casted a recon spell, everyone was able to see a blurred figure running through the demon army. And like lions, everyone quickly moved to kill off that last demon Count.

*Shing!*

"Assassin dead!"

With an excited shout, a class 4 held up the assassin's decapitated head. Seeing this, everyone smiled and sighed in relief.

Dream came floating down to the group while sending out swords to kill the demons that tried to eat the human corpses. 

"I suggest we collect the dead and return. My army is currently on the way and they'll be able to take care of this army."

Hearing him, the Emperor nodded and went over to the dead humans, collecting their corpses. 

"Wait, this one's alive!"

With a surprised shout, the Emperor bent down to one of the humans. It was a fighter that used an ax, and he had been stabbed through the heart by one of the assassins.

"Do we have a healer?"

"Let me take a look."

"You're a healer, Dream?"

"I know how to heal rather well."

Saying so, Dream called out Aegis and scanned the body. 

[His heart is completely destroyed. One of his lungs has been blown open. His spine is severed between the shoulder blades. Mana from the demon is hindering his healing ability.]

"Can we fix the heart?"

[We can try.]

"Use Aegis."

[Understood.]

Extending his hand to the wound on his back, Aegis began to flow and insert himself into the weak body. Everyone sensed this but didn't interfere. Dream had already proven himself reliable.

After invading his body, Aegis received data from Dream's influence scan and began going to work under Sophia's guidance. His nanoparticles began rebuilding the man's destroyed body and filling in for anything too destroyed for recovery. At the same time, Dream used his magic to purge the demons mana, allowing his recovery ability to kick in.

After Aegis had rebuilt some of the heart and lungs, he began moving and forming a synthetic replacement using some materials Dream handed to him. The man's flesh was too destroyed in some areas and couldn't be salvaged, so the only way to save him and allow healing over time was to fill in for the destroyed parts. Dream also inserted some artificial blood that would aid in recovery.

Everyone stood guard for nearly 20 minutes as Dream worked on the man. Eventually, Dream retracted Aegis and stood up.

"How is he?"

The Emperor asked solemnly. He knew that Dream was rebuilding the man, but he didn't know his state. It wasn't easy to detect all the microscopic changes after all. 

"He should be fine as long as his body heals properly. He definitely needs a healer though."

"Then let's head back now. I'll carry him."

Saying so, the Emperor picked the body up and everyone flew into the ships, taking all the dead bodies with them. The ships then turned and flew off, heading straight for the Empire.

........

As they flew to the Empire, Dream's army was already mobilizing and making their way towards the advancing demon army. 

Dream also had Luna, Iris, Selene and Riddick fly over to the army for some training. He had robbed Iris of her fight the last battle, so he figured 20 million demons would be good enough to make up for that.

He on the other hand had some business to attend to. 

After arriving at the Empire, he didn't stay long. He bid everyone farewell after they held a small post-battle meeting and got healers in the room. 

And after leaving the palace, he boarded another ship. This one was pointed to the Enchanted Mountain, and it was where his business was.

His payment had been prepared.

Like the Emperor said, the materials he was going to receive was not only for the first battle but also for his help in recovery. And on top of that, he had told Dream that he would be paid for his help in this battle as well. 

As for the 2nd and 3rd payments, Dream wasn't sure how much they were. All the Emperor told him is that he wouldn't be disappointed. But for the first payment, Dream knew very well how much he was getting paid.

What Dream had requested consisted of 20% of the materials used in his army as well as a 100% damage compensation. And truth be told, the damage compensation wasn't much. But the base pay? That's what made the Empire bleed.

Dream had spent a vast majority of his materials when building the army. All the low grade materials were used as fuel while the high grade materials were used in his weapons. This was spread across his 80,000 soldiers and the weapons to equip them, his hundreds of aircraft, his railguns, reactors, and even factory expansion. 

Overall, the amount of steel consumed equaled nearly 7,000 tons while the mithril consumed was another 3,000 tons. This was basically all he had at the time. And 20% of that meant he was getting at least 2,000 tons of material.

Luckily, and perhaps the only reason the Empires didn't reject, most of the materials consisted of Iron while the mithril he would receive was mostly low grade with some high grade.

One couldn't forget that the Iron the Empires held was only regular Iron. While it was still enhanced merely by being on the planet, it would only be equal to around grade 3 mithril. Not to mention how Iron was many times more abundant than silver. This meant that the Empires had massive stockpiles of the stuff, and what Dream wanted from them was only a small amount compared to how much they had. 

And while the amount of mithril he wanted hurt them, they figured that it was only appropriate considering he was willing to settle for a bunch of 'worthless' Iron. So after all the consideration, his payment was agreed on, and this is what he was going to collect.

It didn't take long for Dream to arrive at the Mountain. And once he did, he was greeted by someone who had been waiting. 

"Dream?"

"That's me."

"Great! My name is Afflon. I'll be in charge of making sure your resources are delivered properly. Please follow me."

"Sure."

Saying so, Afflon, a class 3, made his way into the Mountain with Dream right behind him. 

After flying through the air for a while, they came up on a very large building that covered nearly a two square miles of area. It was more wide than tall, and unlike many of the wood buildings around them, this was made of solid stone and even metal.

"This is where most of the materials throughout the Empire are moved, whether for a transaction or other business."

"With how many tens of thousands of tons of resources you guys have, I'm sure they couldn't all fit in this small building."

Dream looked around after entering. It looked like a normal large warehouse that was fortified a bit. But the amount of resources he saw inside were small. And if he knew anything about storing resources, its that it took a lot of space. Just look at his space factory for example. Just the processing plants took up many square miles of space, and his storage area was a few times that size.

"You are indeed correct. This area is actually only the first floor of many. But instead of going up, most of the building is underground."

"I see."

"Most of your resources have been moved up here though for easy access. And speaking of, do you have any specific way you wish to move your materials?"

"I have some helpers actually and ships to move the stuff. In fact, they should be here any second now. Bobs?"

"Lord!"

When he called out, voices could be heard from behind them. The guide Afflon flipped around in surprise.

"What are these?"

"These are Bobs. 50 of my finest helpers."

"T-these are your helpers?"

"They are. My ships are also in the sky, ready for loading."

"Ships?"

"Yes. I want my resources to be brought outside so that my Bobs here can load them and send them off. Where are the resources?"

"...Right this way."

Afflon walked a bit farther through the warehouse before coming up on some large piles of iron and silver. These piles were being guarded by some soldiers, and the different treatment of these materials was obvious. 

"Stand down men. This is Dream and he's come to take his materials."

Seeing that they tensed up, Afflon settled the guards. He could understand though. Dream's 50 Bobs were following them and gave off a strong aura.

"Let's see... 2,000...30...4,200 tons of Iron. And 1,700 tons of mithril. And...is that titanium? And what are those materials over there?"

Dream saw something that caught his eye and extended his hand, forcing a metal crate to fly over to him.

"This crate holds some special metals know as Solarite and Chlorophyte. These materials were given at the request of the Emperor along with increased quantities of the Iron and Mithril."

"What is Solarite and Chlorophyte?"

"Solarite and Chlorophyte are elemental metals capable of enhancing fire and earth magic respectively. They're very strong and expensive, only being beat by pure Mithril."

"...Interesting."

Dream made the two different types of metals float in front of him as he scanned them with his influence and mana.

[These metals are both Iron actually. The only thing that's different is that these metals have been filled to the brim with elemental mana. And only that elemental mana. Like that Solarite. Right now it's heating up the surroundings passively due to the influence of its elemental mana on the surrounding mana.]

'Alright. But is this useful for anything?'

[Maybe a very specific weapon. But not really. The only thing that's useful is the fact that it has a high amount of flux.]

'Okay. But how does this thing maintain its heating effect constantly without running out of energy?'

[This chunk of metal had certain properties bestowed upon its flux that changes the mana it collects. When it is exposed to fire mana, it seeks to collect that mana. When it's exposed to ambient mana like right now, it seeks to change that ambient mana into fire mana.]

'So you can change the properties of mana whenever you want? Could I change regular mana into fire mana?'

[As far as I know, yes. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what high level people do. Like Iris. She does exactly that. And you're really good at making neutral mana.]

'Huh. Nice. Though I'm interested in how this formed. It had to be mined from somewhere.'

Dream turned his attention back to Afflon, who had been waiting silently.

"Hey, where does this metal come from?"

"I believe most metals like Solarite come from very fiery areas like volcanoes. Though it's also common to find these metals in a cave dwelling inhabited by an elemental monster. As for Chlorophyte, areas aligned with nature that have high mana densities usually create this metal."

"Volcanoes... nice. Well, my Bobs will help me handle all these materials. Let them load my ships. And since there's so much, I won't be able to move this all at once. It'll take time."

"Of course. Take all the time you need."

"Then I'll be going."

"Going?"

"Yes."

"Then who will..."

"My Bobs. Bob 1! Take over."

"Yes, my Lord."

Bob 1 walked over to Afflon and began discussing his plans, taking over for Dream. All the other 49 Bobs also began picking up materials and moving them outside and into the ships above them, which had caught loads of attention. 

Dream walked out of the warehouse and was immediately met with a large crowd. All of them were looking up at the nearly 15 reactor-driven cargo carriers. These were part of the mining teams, but Dream moved them temporarily to help carry the resources.

"Dream?!"

As he walked out of the warehouse and through some streets, Dream's name was suddenly called out. He tensed up, recognizing the cutesy voice.