Chapter 79: After the Battle (2)

After the battle, Su Lun checked the eight Ballistas. Fortunately, they were not damaged. Only two had minor issues and would work fine after replacing some parts back home.

He finished off any Ogre that wasn’t dead. Other injured creatures like Goblins, Kobolds, and Gnolls were killed too, as Su Lun had no medicine to treat them. Those unhurt were captured. However, not many Goblins, Kobolds, or Gnolls were taken prisoner in this battle.

Most of the slaves had escaped during the chaos. Some were killed, and the slower ones were caught by the Barbarian Warriors. In total, the captives numbered just over a hundred.

Besides captives, this time they gained the most spoils. The various armors and Spiked Clubs used by the Ogres were made of iron. Due to the forging technique, they were quite heavy. A full set of Ogre equipment weighed nearly two hundred jin. Only Ogres and giants could use such heavy gear.

Su Lun planned to take the equipment back to melt down and recast. With over a hundred Ogres, the total weight of the equipment exceeded twenty tons. This was iron, not ore. Even though Su Lun’s Territory had an iron mine, the Kobolds at the Mine would need at least half a month to mine enough ore to produce twenty tons of steel.

After cleaning the battlefield, Su Lun did not leave immediately. It was still drizzling, and he didn’t want to travel in the rain. The Wilderness had no proper roads, and rain made travel even harder. If they couldn’t make it back and had to camp in the wild, that would be troublesome.

However, someone needed to go back to the Territory to report. Su Lun found two uninjured Barbarian Warriors and sent them back in the rain with the message. He led the others into the unfinished Ogre camp.

Although the camp wasn’t fully built, the living quarters were already set up. But the Ogre houses needed cleaning, as Ogres weren’t very concerned about hygiene, so their homes were far from clean.

In such weather, having a shelter from the wind and rain was good enough. The autumn rain, fine as ox hair, carried a chill. Though the Barbarians were strong, spending a night soaking in the rain would be unpleasant.

Su Lun had the slaves clean the camp before he moved in. The Barbarian Warriors started a fire and cooked dinner. Chris handled the post-battle tasks. Su Lun took the Ogre Mage’s body into a house.

The Ogre Mage’s body was placed on a large stone platform. Ordinary Ogre corpses weren’t very valuable, so Su Lun gave them to the Gnolls as food. But the Ogre Mage’s body had some worth.

Su Lun took out a sharp knife and cut open the Ogre Mage’s chest. Though the Ogre looked fat, Su Lun found it wasn’t flabby obesity but strong muscles covered with a layer of fat, especially on the belly.

It looked like a swimming ring, but on closer look, one could see the outlines of strong muscles.

Su Lun removed the Ogre’s heart and used ice to preserve it. Besides the heart, he found a skilled skinner among the Barbarian Warriors to skin the Ogre Mage and collected some blood as well.

As a magical creature, the Ogre Mage’s parts contained some magic. Though Su Lun didn’t know how to make Magic Potions or Enchanted Items, he could sell these to Wizards for a good price. If he recruited an Alchemist, these materials would be useful.

After properly preserving the harvested parts, Su Lun stored them all in his Storage Space. The System’s Storage Space was only three cubic meters, but items inside remained in stasis, unchanged from when they were placed.

The Barbarian Warriors were in high spirits. In the evening, they prepared a big bonfire party in the camp’s open space, even building a rain shelter with scattered wood. All Barbarians except those on night watch participated.

The Barbarian Warriors were very happy about defeating an Ogre Tribe and considered the battle a glory. Every Barbarian Warrior marked themselves with a tattoo using special paint.

After the battle, all participating Barbarians leveled up. The strongest few Barbarian Warriors had advanced to Barbarian Great Axe Berserker. As a non-Hero class, this level was near the top. To level further, they needed a Self-Created Hero Template to become a Hero.

Self-Created Hero Templates were scarce. So far, Su Lun only had one, so this path wasn’t practical. Even if he got more in the future, there wouldn’t be enough for all top-tier Soldiers to use. Of course, this didn’t mean they had no chance to advance further.

They just couldn’t rely on System experience to level up. If they worked hard, they might break through the bottleneck and become a Hero, but the chance was very low—maybe one in a hundred or even a thousand top Soldiers succeeded.

In fact, in this world, perhaps only Dragons had no bottlenecks. As long as they lived long enough, they could grow from a hatchling to an adult dragon, mature dragon, old dragon, Ancient Dragon, all without bottlenecks. After the Ancient Dragon Stage, if they didn’t die of old age, they would advance to Ancient Dragon, Primordial Dragon, and even Ancestral Dragon.

But going from a hatchling to a Primordial Dragon took at least tens of thousands of years. Few creatures could live that long.

Humans lived 70 to 100 years, which wasn’t short in this world. Gnolls had a pitiful natural lifespan of 35 years. Goblins and Kobolds lived even shorter. Dwarves lived 300 to 500 years, Elves 500 to 1000 years, and even Half-elves lived about 300 years.

Of course, if one reached the Legendary Tier, lifespan increased greatly. The profession with the longest lifespan was Wizard. A Legendary Wizard could live for hundreds or thousands of years if careful. Even near the end of life, one could choose to become a Lich. A Legendary Tier Lich could theoretically live at least 3000 to 5000 years.

So a Legendary Wizard’s accumulated wealth could rival that of a mature dragon. A Wizard’s power came from knowledge, and their long lives made them very strong.