Chapter 108 108: The First Ring I
That was most definitely a scary experience, and as far as Cole saw it, they would not be able to deal with these things as they are right now, not until they had more people here to help. But that wouldn't be for a little while more, out of five million, depending on the amount that actually made it to the second floor if you considered just how much of a colossal hard mode the first floor had been; there was still some time before they got more aspirants in the glade.
A couple factors adding to it all is the fact that there was sure to be other glades, and beyond that since that brat Tiana was not here and she was the first to get to the third floor it meant she was in a different glade, and being the first means she would probably have a little bit of precedent.
Cole was a little confused about what to do, he could strike out on his own, but there was no way he would be able to get through this floor on his own… but then again he really didn't feel as if he could work well with others. However if they wanted to get ahead, if he wanted to get ahead they had to figure something and fast.
"What do we do now Cole? There's just too much of those things for us to be able to get to the nests." Farida asked him as he got back into the glade, he furrowed his eyebrows as he asked back.
"Why are you asking me?" Farida blinked, almost as if she was confused by the question, but Cole knew why, there was something brewing here and while he didn't like it was most definitely to his own advantage, but it would be better if they used their own mouth to say it themselves.
"You are the first person in the Glade and the strongest out of all of us… heck you are the strongest Aspirant for this entire event. And while I absolutely hate your guts… through no fault of yours considering I've been an absolute jerk, I recognize that we need to work together to beat this floor and you are the strongest, which means you have to be our leader…. Or mayor." Xerxes99 turned his head to the other side as he sniffed.
Cold had to admit that having him say all that was a lot more satisfying than having to beat him up or killing him down until he is left with just one life. But still….. He liked the sound of being called leader and the most powerful… he was human he had an ego. But ultimately the idea of having to deal with people made him cringe.
"Fine I guess I can work with you guys for a while, and since I'm the leader I guess I can tell you guys what to do right?" Cole asked, forget his ego, he needed everyone here to be effective and functioning at 100% and he needed them out of his way…. Until any one of them can prove that they would not be holding him back.
What he got was a series of nods, he smiled. Then he nodded his head to them as he gave the glade a once over. It didn't help matter that as he did so there was a flash of light and someone else appeared within the glade. He sighed as he turned to the others.
"Farida you and the Jerk Xerxes99 are the only people I know, however based on what I've seen you can handle people quite well. So perhaps you should hang around the glade for now… at least for a day or two and sort out the new arrivals. We need enough people in our corner to be able to tackle the nest, but I doubt that the stone resource can only be gotten from the nest, the compass is just leading us to what's closer.
I believe we can ignore that direction for now, try to keep people away from it unless there's someone stubborn enough to try it. Then let them die a few times, even I would not be able to handle that much. Try and get everyone to work together, create teams that should focus on clearing the trees in one direction, and preferably start from where I stopped.
Have an extra team watch them as those Chitterlings love to set ambushes. It would enable us get things done faster and we can still gather an excess of Mana Cores that can be used for more upgrades. Xerxes and I and umm…. What's your name again?" Cole asked the elf like orc? With the lightning abilities.
"My name is Thunderbolt-Jack." The man responded as Cole blinked his eyes, but then shrugged. While he preferred using his name, soon enough everyone would come to know him as world breaker, he was in no position to judge someone else's name, but if he had to be honest, the moniker worked quite well.
"The three of us will go scouting, we will move until we find a stone resource as it should not be viable for there to be only one of it available. Then we will establish a dire and safe route to it before coming back. By then with just us three we should be able to harvest enough to complete this first mission, then we will move on from there. Is that okay?"
The thing about leading people is that dictating without any sort of diplomacy would usually come back to bite you in the ass. Cole knew he would never willingly bow his head to anyone else, but ultimately if you were leading you had to listen and even if you wanted to impose order you had to make the people following you think it was their idea….and Cole was right as chorus of agreement rang out. He nodded his head and asked Xerxes99 and Thunderbolt-Jack.
"Is there anything else you guys have to take care of?" they both gave non committed responses but clear enough to let him know that they were good to go.
"Alright then, you guys should dump any resources in your inventory to the glade, we move out in five minutes. Farida you can send me a chat request should anything else come up. The beast thing we can do for now is to be productive, we will scout around for an hour. Keep me posted of everything." With that Cole went ahead to dump all of the resource he had gathered into the glade's inventory or resource pool. He would need his inventory empty for this expedition because he had no intention of coming back empty handed.
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