Of course, Al's work during this period indeed yielded significant results.
Conscription among the submitted Estalians was ongoing.
Al initially planned to recruit one in twenty from the over two hundred thousand refugees, providing him with a force of at least ten thousand.
Combined with the existing Mortal Auxilia and militia, this would form three legions of six thousand men each, totaling eighteen thousand troops.
For a tribe's productivity, this could be considered aggressive warmongering, but Al had considered multiple factors.
First, under the current circumstances, developing military strength was the absolute top priority.
Without winning, everything else was moot; if they won, they would have everything.
Second, the tribe's current production level.
Although magic was widely utilized, the nation was still in its infancy and at a relatively backward level.
However! The Piña Forest was rapidly transforming into a magical forest. The speed at which products and resources naturally generated and grew was many times faster than before.
At the current progress, many human settlements could feed their entire population and build a surplus using less than a third of their labor force for foraging and hunting.
Therefore, the problem of conscription causing a labor shortage that affected production could be ignored.
The most important was the third point.
In Al's future kingdom, humans were bound to make up the vast majority of the population.
Compared to the millions of Southern humans in Estalia, even scouring the entire Piña Forest would likely yield fewer than a hundred thousand Beastmen.
With such a massive demographic disparity, forming human troops and shifting the army's composition toward humans was inevitable.
Al could not afford to drag his fundamental base—the core Beastmen—from south to north, suffering continuous losses, while leaving the massive refugee population unused simply because their loyalty to him and faith in the Four Mothers were not yet entirely solid.
Similar to historical systems Al knew of—like the "Myriad Household Lords" [Mongol Empire], the "Han and Mongol Eight Banners" [Qing Dynasty], or the "Green Standard Army"—these were institutions developed out of necessity when a minority population ruled a majority.
He naturally wouldn't adopt the "use beasts to rule humans, oppress the many with the few" approach.
But regardless, the Four-Gods Beastmen were the absolute backbone and core direct descendants under Al's command.
For example: If, in the next second, all the Estalian refugees from Veling, Magus, and Cerebrio in Piña vanished into the Warp—as if a creator playing a game had dragged a box over them and clicked delete...
The tribe's development would instantly suffer a devastating blow, its upward momentum cut in half.
But, it would not affect the consolidation of Al's rule in the slightest.
Al would still have tens of thousands of Beastmen at his disposal, ready to deploy a legion-scale army of Khorngors to fight for him at any moment.
But if all the Beastmen suddenly vanished—even if only half of them did—Al's rule would be instantly shaken.
He wouldn't even be able to maintain absolute control over the Piña Forest, let alone use a pitifully sparse Beastman population to conquer the vastly larger Kingdom of Estalia and establish a stable reign.
At that point, Al's best option would be:
Pack up his valuables immediately, slip out of the forest, infiltrate human society, change his identity, and rely on the Four Mothers' blessings, the support of a "Beastman ally army willing to fight for him," and most importantly, his own personal efforts.
He would climb the ranks step by step, approach and seize the highest power in the Kingdom of Estalia, receive the Nine Bestowments, declare himself King, step onto the shield, and be hailed with three cheers of "Long live!"
Whether this process was better or worse than breaking into the civilized world with the Beastmen was hard to say.
Leaving several times more Estalian refugees to peacefully focus on production behind closed doors, living their little lives under the protection of the mist and the forest,
while the minority Beastmen—a demographic gap that would only widen in the future—continued to contribute their youth to the battlefield under the call of the Four Mothers and the Everchosen...
Given the intensity and frequency of war in the Old World, they would inevitably head toward extinction.
This wasn't a game where you click a mouse and an empty city instantly produces a full stack of troops.
Even for the "Sons of Al"—the God-blessed Beastmen, the Beastman Astartes scions he joked about—completing the process from gestation to blood-infusion to birth took anywhere from a few months to half a year.
It took nearly another half-year for them to fully mature. One warrior per year was already an incredibly exaggerated speed.
Aside from the Skaven, who created "Broodmothers" as birthing machines; the Greenskin Orcs, who spread spores and grew out of the ground; and the Undead, who animated corpses and remains...
Al opening the floodgates and bleeding himself to speed-produce troops likely ranked fourth in the world for production speed at a comparable scale.
But the consequence was a scarcity of naturally born Beastmen, preventing the tribe's population from expanding further as newborns were converted into fast-growing, fast-dying expendable warriors.
Which was better or worse could only be decided by Al.
But the formation of Mortal Legions was beyond doubt; it was a foregone conclusion.
As their scale continued to expand, the role of the Beastmen would gradually shift toward being the backbone, elites, commanders, and monster infantry.
The Greenskins had mobilized a ferocious army of over two hundred thousand to march north.
He planned to attack their rear, and later he would have to face the remnant forces of the Estalians—of course, that was assuming the Northern Council didn't get WAAAAAGH!-ed into oblivion by the Greenskins.
And with Al's current assets, it was hard to say if his tens of thousands of Beastmen could withstand the attrition of several major battles like the Sacred Grove.
By forming a loyal and reliable human force in advance, their fighting capability could be cultivated through continuous tempering and combat.
The previous eight-thousand-strong Mortal Auxilia had lost over half their number after the Great War.
Counting those who died from wounds or were discharged, only just over five thousand remained.
This meant he still needed to recruit thirteen thousand men.
If he included the Vanguard Legion—which Al had no intention of returning and was looking for a chance to swallow—he needed to expand the army by nearly another ten thousand.
The earliest Mortal Auxilia troops were volunteers from beneath the walls of Veling who were willing to follow Al and crusade against the Greenskins.
Encouraged by continuous victories, they were incorporated into Al's command.
Having personally witnessed their comrades roaring "Blood for the Bloodmother, Skulls for the Throne!" and charging for Al to deal crushing defeats to the Greenskins...
These volunteers profoundly understood the tribe's power, feeling it was an unstoppable force.
Witnessing the descent of the Four Mothers' blessings firsthand was undoubtedly a massive shock to descendants who had lived through a hundred and fifty years of development and the "Era of Hidden Gods," where faith had greatly diminished compared to their devout ancestors.
Most of them converted to the Four Mothers.
Since Myrmidia ignored the suffering they experienced, the Estalians naturally chose the tangible, "true salvation" right beside them to reverse their present defeat.
A minority who had maintained their faith also converted during the wave of refugees opposing the Kingdom and mass-converting to join the tribe.
After entering the forest and returning to his home base, Al held absolute initiative.
Using this, he smoothly integrated the remaining military forces among the refugees, such as the city guards, militia, and mercenaries from the three cities.
This was the origin and composition of the Mortal Auxilia.
They were relatively steadfast. As long as they weren't forced to directly attack the Kingdom or fight a guaranteed suicide battle, they were reliable in most situations.
Previously, when Al secretly incited the Vanguard Legion to use force to suppress settlements unwilling to serve in the military as a warning to others, the mortal warriors of the Auxilia were willing to follow tribal orders and stand against the Vanguard soldiers representing the Kingdom.
Of course, this was because the Kingdom acted inhumanely first, causing public resentment to boil.
The Auxilia warriors, who mainly came from these refugees, were naturally willing to resist tyranny with the tribe's support.
The militia units drafted later were relatively less reliable.
It could only be said that they obeyed the tribe's command unified under the banner and direction of "Resisting the Greenskins."
Having them fight wars was fine, but having them do other things might not work.
Al's goal in expanding the army was not just to strengthen combat power.
It was also to use this method to separate the young men from the civilians, working both within the legions and the tribe to consolidate the converts' faith in the Four Mothers.
He had confidence in the Four Mothers.
The current conscription effort was barely a third complete.
The first phase mainly recruited those who were single or had more than one able-bodied man in their household.
Once fed and watered, the men's willingness to enlist was much higher, especially under the encouraging image of the tribe's constant victories and Al and his legions winning every battle.
Whether out of true devotion or being swept up by the tide to shout those words, anyone who slaughtered in Her name would eventually become a devout believer of the Bloodmother.