"What the heck is a 'Dragon Hourglass'?" Technoblade said as he received advice on how to proceed from the voices.
They had told him that there was a soft level cap at level 40 for non-heroes and that in order to continue to grow levels, he would need to go to something called a 'Dragon Hourglass' and have the kids undergo a 'Class Up' ceremony.
"The Dragon Hourglass? I've heard of it." Orphan #1 said. "It is supposed to be a giant hourglass inside of the main temple of the capital that counts down until the start of the Wave of Calamity."
"...Why didn't anyone tell me about that before!?" Technoblade loudly complained. "Alright, I guess we need to take a trip back into town now. Oh well. I needed to do some shopping anyways."
'Before doing the Class Up, you should reset your levels once.' One of the many voices advised Technoblade.
"Reset levels?"
'One of the functions of the Legendary Holy Weapons allows you to reset yourself back to level 1, in exchange for getting a growth modifier on future levels ups, relative to how high the highest level you've ever achieved is.'
"...That is busted!" Technoblade squawked, surprising those around him yet again as he talked to himself.
He had unlocked growth modifiers for his slaves and monsters because of 'Slaver's Sword' and 'Beastmaster's Sword'. Each of those series had gotten to rank 3 and with their equipment bonuses not just Mastered, but Awakened.
Based on his observations, this granted both an increased their stat growth at each level from +5% to +7.5%, and a +50% stat increase to his slaves and tamed monsters on top of that, which was absolutely absurd.
It meant that at level 40, they had stats equal to what should have been a level 66.
It had meant that their stats were all significantly higher than Technoblade's own… which was completely unfair, since it was his buffs that were increasing their stats.
If he could increase that growth modifier even further, and apply one to himself, he'd be unstoppable by anyone without a similar cheat. And right now was the perfect time to do it, since they would only lose a single day of progress.
"Alright kids, I'm going to reset our levels and we are going to spend one more day on the grind. After that, we will head back to town and get you Class Ups." Technoblade announced to the children before grinning at his status screen and freezing. "...Um… How do I do that?"
"I can't believe how strong we are getting." Keel said, looking over his stat page just 8 hours after their levels had been reset, as his own shift was starting.
After noticing that the Demihuman children, unlike Piglins, needed long stretches of uninterrupted sleep, Techno changed the work schedule so that he, Keel and Raphtalia each had a separate 8 hour shift for the second day, letting the kids relax and sleep for the remaining time.
Keel was glad for this, since it meant that there would be a stretch of time where he wouldn't need to share the bed with Raphtalia, and might actually be able to sleep properly, without feeling her body heat so close to him.
Technoblade had just completed his 8 hours and they were all already back up to level 35 and Keel's stats were already 20% higher than they had been when he had been level 40, meaning they were equal to that of a normal level 70, according to Technoblade, who seemed to like running these kinds of numbers on things.
It was no wonder people wanted the Legendary Heroes whenever the Waves of Calamity came. Even their companions became unreasonably powerful just by association.
Closing his menu, Keel started to finish off the already dying monsters with the sword his Master had given him. The sound of their screams and the sight of blood no longer caused him to freeze up the way it had just the day before. Funny, how quickly one could get used to something.
And as he did this mindless task, he would occasionally glance towards where Technoblade stood, surrounded by various work benches, covered in veils and tools of every kind. At the moment, he was hunched over a large table made of black stones, several diamonds inlaid into it and a large mithril chest plate, which Techno had made himself from ores he had mined, in the center of it.
The diamonds were glowing with a strange energy, symbols made of multicolored lights floating out and towards the chest plate, where Techno would etch them into the metal using the Legendary Holy Sword, transformed into a sort of scalpel. All the while, the Piglin chanted in a low voice and kept his free hand on the table, sending energy into it.
It was an incredible sight to behold and Keel found himself slowing down as he watched Technoblade work, until the man let out a long sigh and put down the plate. "That's the best I'm going to get until I get some blank books or paper." Techno chuckled to himself. "It's better than the gold armor, but man, I just feel naked without a full set of enchantments."
"I didn't know that you were a magician as well." Keel said.
"Ha! Me, a magician? Nah. It's all in the table. With this, anyone can enchant things, if they know the right words." Technoblade said, patting the table. "You want to learn? If so, just come on over. I was planning on teaching you kids about it eventually."
"Huh? But what about my shift?" Keel said, surprised by the offer.
"Apollo and Artemis can handle it by themselves for a while. It's not that hard." Technoblade said. "If you want to survive and become independent, you'll need to learn how to do enchantments and make potions eventually."
"Independent?" Keel said, confused as to how a slave could every be considered independent.
"Yeah. Now get over here. We can start with a basic Unbreaking enchantment for that sword of yours and work our way up." Technoblade said, waving the child forward.
Teaching Keel how to make his first enchantments left Techno with a feeling of nostalgia, reminding him of back when he was young, and Philza was teaching him and Wilbur how to make their very first swords.
Keel's runes were terrible and he wasted so much of the energy he had gathered from the monsters he had killed, and Technoblade laughed at him for it, but he also encouraged the boy to continue, tossing the failed blade away and giving him a new one from the multitude of cheap swords that they had gotten from item drops.
Eventually, he managed to get it right.
"Wow, this is amazing." Keel said, looking at the weapon he had enchanted with starry eyes, a faint flickering aura around it that made the blade seem a whole four inches longer.
"Oh yeah. Amazing stuff that." Technoblade snorted, amused at how the child could be so amazed by a simple tier 1 Sweeping Edge enchant. Something that he would consider trash. If he found a iron sword with tier 1 Sweeping Edge on a body, he would assume the person had been a hobo. "A man with high grade enchanted armor and weapons can easily stand against a dozen people with standard equipment. And with the right potions in the mix, a dozen can become a hundred. Or that was how things were in my old world."
"Your old world… what was it like?" Keel asked.
"Mh. It was alright. We had a lot more monsters than you guys have around here, but not as much variety. Whenever night fell, they would swarm you like ants. It was annoying." Technoblade said, describing the Overworld of the SMP. "There was also no such thing as 'leveling up'. Everyone was effectively level 1. Skill, equipment and good allies were the only things you could rely on."
Keel couldn't even imagine it. Fighting against armies of monsters as a level 1.
"That will be enough training for now. You can get back to work." Technoblade said, waving the boy off.
He'd also like to start teaching the kids about potions, but his supply of nether wart wouldn't last through such a thing.
He had a tiny bit with him, and some soul sand in case he needed to summon a Wither, but it wasn't enough to get a large scale farm going. He planted what he could, glad that being from the Nether, Nether Wart required neither light nor water in order to grow. Though since the temperatures were far from ideal, they would probably grow a little slowly, even with bone meal.
He was also going to need to teach the kids how to fight properly.
While the monster grinder was conditioning them not to panic at the sight of blood or shrink away from delivering a killing blow, it wasn't good for imparting good swordsmanship skills. Even if the children still have stats that were triple his own, Technoblade could easily dismantle them both at once due to their lack of combat skills.
They would need time for a proper training section. It would probably be the top priority after their Class Ups. But that would mean his monster grinder would go unused, and he hadn't built in an off switch. It would take a while, but if left alone for a week or so, the bodies would stack up high enough that they could cushion the fall of new monsters. A broken monster grinder was an extremely dangerous thing.
He'd need to get more slaves in order to run the thing.
Luckily, after their 48 hours down there was complete, he should have around 575 gold coins from absorbing the corpses. Enough to buy a hundred slaves to work the monster grinder and help with his farm.
Soon, his army was going to be getting a giant boost.
"My goodness me! Sir, you are truly a master of raising slaves!" The slave trader said with wonder as he looked Raphtalia up and down. "Who would have thought that sick little runt would grow up to become such a beauty!? She could go for a hefty sum if sold as she is now! And is that a Royal Filolial!? I thought that they were only the things of myths and legends! It must be worth a fortune!"
Raphtalia glanced towards Techno with worry as Keel jumped in front of her and bared his teeth against the small man, growling angrily. Chilza also seemed to understand what he had been saying and was trying to hide his massive body behind Technoblade, with little success.
"Well tough luck, because I'm not having money problems." Technoblade said. "I'm here to buy, not sell."
"I… I see. Yes. I suppose a man like you would not part easily with such wonderful slaves." The slave trader said with slight disappointment before eying Keel. "Forgive me if I am misremembering, but didn't you purchase one girl and one boy?"
"Yeah, well, you don't always get what you asked for." Technoblade said, before changing the subject. "For this time around I was thinking of buying in mass. Let's go with a hundred monster eggs and thirty slaves." He took out a bag with three hundred gold coins and tossed it on the table. "Try to make sure that at least one of the slaves has farming experience."
Technoblade's plan was to create fifteen teams of two slaves and six tamed monsters, buying a few extra eggs incase some didn't hatch or hatched into useless animals. It was going to take half of his money, but he would still have plenty to spend on other things.
"Y…Yessir." The slave trader said, surprised by the sizable purchase.
"I've got other things to do around town, so make the arrangements and I'll pick them up in a few hours." Technoblade told the man.
"I… I'm going to need some of your blood for…" The slave trader started by Technoblade already retrieved a large veil of his own blood. More than enough for the hundreds of slave contracts. "Thank you very much."
And with that, Technoblade left the shop. "We need a shop which sells paper, and to find somewhere I can get some glow stones and water source stones. After that, we'll go to the Temple and get your Class Ups."
"You could probably find all of those things at a magic store." Raphtalia suggested… only to find that Technoblade had suddenly vanished right before their eyes. They hadn't even blinked. "Where did he…?"
They turned to see Technoblade standing in front of a stall that was selling a variety of vegetables. "Potatoes. Carrots too. And the wheat. I'll buy all you have. The seeds too."
"I… I don't usually sell the seeds but…" The poor farmer's daughter said, panicking slightly at seeing the large and fully armored Piglin looming over her with half crazed eyes.
"No excuses! Now take my coins and hand them over! I'll give you 50 gold for all of it!" Technoblade boomed, waving a bag of money in front of the woman's face.
"Y…Yes! Of course!"
Basically a filler chapter. Next one will start with the magic shop, but will hopefully get started on what happens at the Temple, since we all know that organized religion is just another form of government.
I have gone through several different scenarios for this and have one that I really like, being badass, funny as hell and traumatizing for the kids.
Three days have past since Technoblade left, so two days since Naofumi was framed. Meaning Naofumi is still level 1.
...How embarrassing.