Ascension of the elder

"No problem sir I just didn't expect you to be that mature yet."

Kyle paused for a second on hearing what Dylan said before a grin spread across his face and he spoke with an air of authority.

"You should never underestimate me, if I say it's at full mast it most definitely will be."

Dylan decided to play along when he heard his young master screwing around.

"Well young master I shall bow to your tent pole."

Dylan bowed his head when suddenly he heard a soft cough from behind him. Slowly turning his head Dylan saw Faye standing there with her arms crossed. It was at this point Dylan remembered he was talking to a child, so hoping to save himself he looked at Kyle for help. Kyle instead looked at Dylan with a confused expression.

"What do you mean Dylan? I have no idea what you're talking about."

Seeing he wasn't getting out of this with any kind of dignity Dylan just began to pay attention to a corner of the room while blocking everything else out. Kyle saw this and began giggling. Once his people were away from what was dragging them down he found them to be fun and funny.

Seeing their little skit was over Faye walked into the centre of the room followed by a group of 10 girls all under the age of 20. All these girls looked a little worse for wear as they all appeared to have come from one slum or another. Once the girls had lined up Faye spoke to Kyle.

"These ladies are all under the age of 20, most are only up to level 1 in their cultivation while the 3 youngest haven't started training. They have all been taken as slaves due to debts either they owed or their parents owed and were taken as collateral."

Kyle looked over the girls carefully while extending his soul force to get an idea of what kind of techniques they had trained in. From a cursory glance it appeared they all studied the basic technique provided to all civilians by the empire.

"Okay Faye these are satisfactory. You can bring in the next batch."

Faye nodded as they only had enough space to bring in 10 at a go because they never dealt with slaves in bulk before. She knew this youngster had something in mind for these girls and as they were debt slaves she hoped they could aim for something better than being someone's sex slave.

Kyle wasn't worried about how they looked or even if they had a stronger cultivation. With his technique almost anything was appearing to be possible so he just needed numbers and loyalty. These women would be trained and would be his last line of defence. His guards would be his visible force while his shadow hand would deal with external threats, finally these girls would be present around his mansion while not showing their abilities until the opportune moment.

When the next group traipsed in they were largely the same just with a higher number of younger girls. This didn't bother Kyle in fact this was preferable because as they were trained they would become part of his now extended family and would become very loyal. Kyle was also satisfied with this crowd and on telling Faye this she was surprised.

Faye felt Kyle wanted people who would be able to work straight away and with training would be able to help guard him. She didn't realise however Kyle was aiming for the long game and wanted true loyalty from the heart and not some enforced loyalty because of the slave seal.

As this group left Faye waited to the side until the last of them had left before she spoke to Kyle once again.

"I'm sorry to inform you Lord Powell but due to the large number of slaves this was the last optimal group within your specification. We have older women who could fill the numbers or we can wait till fresh stock comes in."

"Wait you said optimal, what do you mean by that?"

"Well sir the remaining girls who are within your range are all injured in one way or another. Some can be healed while the others will most likely end up working in the crystal mines."

"That's okay you can bring out the injured as well."

Kyle wasn't bothered if they were injured and wondered what caused these girls to be in this state. Faye was away for a few minutes, so while she was organising the girls Dylan decided to speak to Kyle.

"Sire are you sure you want to bring the injured with us?"

"Its fine Dylan you should know the power of the technique after what you've seen. Besides its better they're with us than they end up in some hell hole. Plus if what I'm planning comes to pass I'll need a lot more people so you can consider this a testing bed."

Dylan fell silent on hearing what Kyle said while wondering why he would need a lot of people. The Powell family already had a lot of guards and his mansion could only house around 200 to 300 people.

Faye brought in the final batch of girls and while 2 of them appeared to be fine the rest all had injuries of one type or another visible. Amongst these injured there were a couple who really stood out. One girl had burns down one side of her face and her hand also appeared burnt so she probably had scars all along that side of her body, while another had visible slash marks across her face Kyle surmised they were from a demon beast attack. The rest had limps or crippled hand and the like.

Seeing them Kyle looked at them without disgust as he found these injuries to be superficial and while no one else in the city could do anything to help them Kyle felt his technique should be able to heal these physical injuries easily.

"Faye can I just check, how did these girls become debt slave?"

"Well sir in order to pay for medical treatments their families had no choice but to use them as payment for the healer's services."

Kyle could have wailed at the injustice of this but he knew that some people would always be selfish and greedy it was just human nature. Even he was willing to help these girls in order to help himself it was only he wouldn't treat them badly after the fact. Looking over the girls Kyle decided to check if there was anything he should be aware of.

"Faye do any of these girls have any special circumstances I should be aware or wary of?"

"Nothing special sir, the eighth along from the left also has some trouble breathing under strenuous exercise oh and the girl with the burns received them when she was training in alchemy and her concoction exploded, she was a trainee mage when this happened but hasn't been able to progress since so her master sold her to recover some of the costs of her treatment. She was originally from Shade Gate city which is 2 cities south from here."

Hearing this girl actually had some alchemy training made Kyle ecstatic. This was exactly what he needed as he didn't have any details about alchemy and the process needed to produce the things they did beyond a simple manual from the family library. Kyle looked over the burned girl once again.

The burned girl would have been pretty with long blond hair and clear grey eyes but with the burns and half her hair now gone she instead looked broken with no will or vitality left in her. Kyle decided he would pay special attention to this girl as she would be a great help in his upcoming plans.

"Okay Faye add this batch to the rest and we'll conclude our deal."

Faye was surprised he accepted all these girls but she was still thankful as it would have been easy for her to have ended up as a slave if her sister wasn't there for her after their parents died. Faye felt that this was the best outcome for these girls and just hoped they wouldn't destroy this opportunity.

"Well Faye if you can organise the delivery of the girls tomorrow, I'll need to get everything organised at home and I also have to pick up some men on my way back."

Hearing Kyle's words Dylan perked up once again as he could finally escape from his earlier embarrassment.

"Oh great sir we're going to pick up some men."