Lyla finished carving the ritual circle into the ground, a task far more difficult than she had expected as the ground kept trying to turn to slime and fill in the cracks.
Once she was finished, she motioned for the priests to come join her.
"I need to know what gods you worship to set up the ritual properly?"
"Most of us follow the god of light but a number of us follow the goddess of order the same as you. Their divine power works best when we purify the ancient battlefield."
Originally the Ancient Caldrian Battlefield, which was corrupted by the power of undeath, had spread halfway through the eastern plains. But a couple hundred years ago the priests of light and the priests of order started using the purifying power of their gods to push back the battlefield.
After purifying it for so long the battlefield had been pushed so far south that it was only the size of a count's territory from north to south but from east to west it stretched over half of the kingdom.
Once it had been shrunk to a strip of land the king had requested that they stop purifying the land so that it could be used as a defensive line against the recent change in approach of the shield federation.
In the last hundred years they had become far more aggressive than when their nation was founded.
The priests accepted and for the last hundred years the Ancient Caldrain Battlefield had remained where it was as a strip of uncrossable land. The only ways to pass it were by ocean to the east or through the dwarven kingdom that was on the western side of the Leighla Kingdoms southern border.
Taking their power and their battlefield experience into account Lyla positioned all of them around the circle and began purifying the world crystal.
Having a few minutes to himself Chronos found Roger at the rear entrance to continue from where they had left off. Daren, Nick, and Conrad were with him working as a unit.
"Hey Roger. Can I continue the questions from before while we wait for the ritual to finish?" He waved as he came up to him.
"I don't mind but we do need to defend this place."
"Don't worry about that too much. There's nothing near here so it's more of a formality and you four aren't on the mainlines right now. Getting back to what we were discussing before, what do the young mages do once they are trained? I know you said that Magar sent kids back home after training them but surely there's more to it." Chronos said.
"There is." Conrad spoke up. "Those that came from other knight or baronet territories were sent home once they reach the peak of the novice rank. While those with potential to reach the adept rank or higher remained with Magar for further training or were sent to the capital to join a mage tower.
For those that chose to stay here they were sent out to respond to natural disasters like crop failures, storms, and flooding. The most famous one was 7 years ago when a storm flooded half the plains and rotted most of the stored food.
When that happened Magar personally led the young mages to drain water from fields and restore the land's vitality. The best part is that he didn't just go to the larger villages, he went to every hamlet and small village he could reach, saving as many lives as he could."
Being willing to go to areas where disease and rot were running rampant showed that Magar had great courage winning respect from Chronos... Or a disregard for his own life due to his advancing age but Chronos doubted it was the later since the young mages were accompanying him.
"And he does this regularly?" Chronos asked.
"Every time there's a natural disaster." Conrad confirmed.
That was impressive but then why was there a conflict between Magar and the baron then?
"When did the conflict between Magar and the baron start? Surely it didn't just happen without reason."
"Hah, that's the baron's fault. When the baron was first given his position Magar went to meet with him and tried to advise him about the best ways to run this region, but the baron refused to listen." Daren said in exasperation.
"If he had simply not listened things wouldn't have gotten this bad." Chronos stated while waiting for them to continue.
They looked at each other before Nick said, "You're right. The baron didn't listen and at first that was fine but then he tried to levy ridiculous taxes for all sorts of different reasons from having fresh water to giving birth, everything was having a tax applied to it. At one point people thought he might even try to tax breathing.
After a while we were unable to stand his ridiculous actions any longer, so Magar went to Earl Malric to complain. I don't know how he managed to get an audience with the earl but a short time later the baron was disciplined by the earl and the ridiculous taxes were revoked.
Ever since then the baron has viewed Magar as his sworn enemy and tried to interfere with anything he was doing."
The baron was constantly interfering yet kept failing to stop Magar? Chronos couldn't help wondering if Magar was simply that skilled or if the baron was that pathetic.
"I see, and what about the wooden palisade? With the skills of his mages Magar should be able to build something much stronger so why didn't he?" Chronos asked.
"You're right. At one point the mages were planning to build basalt walls to protect their village, but when they had just started building, we got word from an insider in the baron's mansion. The criminals working for the baron were planning to arrest Magar claiming that the strong walls and the fact that so many people were gathering under him was a plot to rebel.
Despite being useless, he has a number of criminals working for him or perhaps saying they leech off of him would be better.
While they're using him it makes it hard for us to go against him without starting a war. Luckily, we've spent years rooting them out of the rest of our territories so they can't do much outside of the baron's territory. But that means his territory is an absolute mess." Daren said.