Reincarnated As A Plant Life
chapter-269

It had an obsidian short knife in its right pocket, decorated with beautiful purple gemstones along its hilt and engraved with several odd patterns along its blade -making it look more like a ceremonial knife than one meant for combat.

And in its right pocket was a small pink colored gemstone -about the same size as a seed. Although it looked rather unimpressive, Lucius could sense an odd energy emanating from within it, he suspected that it might be something similar to a manastone.

He would've ran solar energy through it to see if it would have any reaction, however, he didn't want to risk it whilst they were so deep in enemy territory. So after inspecting it for a moment, he placed it in his knapsack.

~Hmm, the knife is pretty sharp, but it's not exactly my size,~ he thought to himself, noting how his hands made the weapon seem like a toy -although he was smaller than the venari, his hands were massive, nearly the same size as Ursa's, who was two times larger than he was.

"Ghost, an early birthday present," Lucius said, handing her the knife as he walked back towards Ursa and the others.

"Birthday?" Ghost asked, inspecting the knife with a sort of curious gaze.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.

~Ah, I never really taught these guys how to use weapons, did I? Though we've never had a reason to honestly,~ he thought to himself. After all, their claws and appendages were better than any knife they could've crafted back in the day.

However now with the prospect of magical weapons on the horizon, it was high time he began their training. Though it was a shame that he was limited with the number of weapons he could train them in.

After all, as a soldier of the 21st century, most of the weaponry he had used was in the form of firearms. And he had little hope of creating something of the sort this early on- or at least that was the way things looked right now.

Apart from that, he was well versed in knife play, though Ghost was the only one with an ability kit allowing for such close-range combat, what with her proficiency with the invisibility technique.

"I'll teach you how to use it later, you can just hold on to it for now," he said finally.

"L-Lighted One, did I do something wrong?" Pagan asked, a look of utter disbelief on his face as he stared at the knife in Ghost's hands. Even though he had no idea what it was, he could tell based on how beautiful it looked, that it was worth quite a bit.

"I haven't forgotten you, Pagan. Your early birthday present is the clothing that guard is wearing. It's all yours," Lucius replied, trying to keep his son happy.

Pagan's look of disbelief quickly turned into an expression that Lucius was not quite familiar with. Pagan took a moment to kneel down in front of the purple-tunic guard, before quickly relieving it of its robes.

"Th-thank you Lighted One," Pagan shouted, inspecting his new outfit with wide excited eyes.

"Be-behold, the Lighted One has shown favour upon me," Pagan said, facing the Argonauts now.

"I, his most trusted have proof that I am the favourite of all his kin. Speak of this when we return to the commune, speak of the Lighted One's love for me," he announced grandly, making his crux send out waves of solar energy to create a sort of light show.

Indeed, he looked like a priest with his purple robes and glowing aura, however, where everyone else seemed slightly in awe of this, Lucius was very annoyed.

"I told you not to waste your solar energy. Now put that away," he snapped, before pushing pasthim and walking to the elder furtong and the miners.

"So, how are things going here?" he asked, again shocking the miners with how fluent his furtong tongue was.

"A-are you really the saviour?" one of the miners asked, a sceptical expression on its face.

"In the flesh," Lucius replied, a steeled expression on his.

"Another fraud," one of the miners whispered under its breath, earning an elbow from one of its comrades.

"If you really are the saviour, can you free all the others? My father and brothers... remaining brothers are in this mine as well. This place is not... it's not what was promised," the furtong pleaded. However, from the expression on its face, Lucius could tell that it did not have much hope in its request.

Even after seeing what Lucius was capable of, it did not think that this task was achievable. Perhaps it had laid its eyes upon the monster that walked these tunnels, that creature that had a higher base level power than even Eiknyr.

"I cannot promise that all your brethren will be saved, but I can promise that we will save who we can," Lucius responded.

"I-I understand," the furtong replied, a sort of disappointed expression on its face.

Lucius wanted badly to be the hero the creature needed, however saving all the furtong simply was not a part of the mission. He was not going to put the lives of two of his first children at risk because he wanted to play superhero.

"If it isn't too much, I'd like some help from you guys as well. Do you know where we can get Aternite? It'd be much appreciated," he asked after a moment of silence had passed.

The creatures looked at each other for a moment, as if pondering whether to help or not, before the furtong at the centre of the group -the one who had been talking earlier- nodded his head in response.

"Follow me, I will take you there," the furtong replied.

*

The furtong led the group deeper into the mines, passing through several other caves where their brethren were being put to labour.

And just as quickly as Lucius had dealt with the first one, he dealt with all the others. Luckily for him, most of the guards he came across were yellow tunics, who seemed to be the weakest of the bunch, allowing him to use minimal solar energy.

They were steadily building up an army of furtong, and though many of them were sceptical about his claim of being the saviour, a good number of them looked to him like he was a hero.

No doubt the commune would have a new stream of members. However Lucius was anything but happy.