Kingdom Building: Civilization Starts with Divinity

"Mmhn." Alchemy stretched, stepping out of the bath. The Sylvan Carvers even created some built-in steps to help her get in or out.

"Now all I need is a proper bed, and I'll be in heaven."

{You're out, mother!}

"Mhm." Alchemy nodded, looking back at the water, ready to see how dirty her bath water was.

Much to her confusion, the water was immaculate. Not a spec of grime or blood was visible in the entire tub.

Thinking that she had somehow failed to get clean, Alchemy frantically checked her body, but she was also spotless.

"Uhm… Sylvie. Does the water in this area have special properties?"

The Sylcan Carver gave a confused chirp.

{Not that we've noticed. Without a research center, it's not easy to tell. Why do you ask, Mother?}

"I mean, both the water and I are free of dirt. Is that normal in this world?"

Cleanliness wasn't something you had to pay attention to back when this was a game.

{Ah! That is because of your Divine Radiance! Any liquid you touch will become a symbol of purity, [Holy Water]

"Holy… Water…" She mused to herself. Looking back and forth between the Sylvan Carver and the tub of water.

"I could unironically sell my bath water…" Alchemy nearly burst into laughter, barely being able to hold herself back.

[Holy Water] was a type of potion in A.O.A, being very easy to produce. It's one of the earliest healing items in the game. Now Alchemy saw why it was so easy.

It's equally one of the weakest tonics, but having any consistent healing items before becoming a [Tier 2 Civilization] was a nice boon to have.

"Ahem… I mean, why didn't you tell me earlier? If I knew that, I could have bathed in the river and saved you the pointless effort!" Alchemy scolded.

{No effort for you is pointless, mother.}

Alchemy lightly groaned. She didn't feel like arguing that logic.

"Right. You said the harvesting was done?

{Yes, we've put all of it in the storage.}

Taking them out of the storage, she was then prompted with a system notification.

Nodding, Alchemy viewed her muted notifications and sorted through them, looking for the resource-gathering log.

"Ah, here it is."

||

"2 Units of Medium-Low Meat? That's not a bad hull. Grab one of those out of Storage; we'll eat that tonight. Oh, and some wood for the Granis' to start a fire." Alchemy said.

As far as food grades went, they went from low to medium-low to high-low to low-medium, etc. Each next tier is worth ten units of the last tier, meaning those two elite wolves dropped 30 units of food for the colony, among their other drops!

If Alchemy kept her current setup, she'd be good for a few days, thanks to the Storage unit's refrigerating effect on food. Not to mention that higher-quality meat generally spoils slower.

The Sylvan Carver quickly got to work without saying another word. It didn't take them long to grab a massive slab of meat—it was like three T-bone steaks set out side by side.

"My god, where am I going to begin cooking this? It's gonna take an entire day just to get medium rare."

{Mother, food needn't be cooked. We can all eat anything. Since you're connected to us, you also can eat anything!}

"I don't doubt your words, but also, just because we CAN live like that doesn't mean I want to. We are the descendants of [Gula, the Gluttony], and if we're gonna feast, it should be a feast suitable for such a title."

{Your words have opened our eyes, Mother.}

'Now that I think about it. What even is Gula? She's one of the few ancients who's mentioned but never showed up in A.O.A. It was her and all the other Ancients representing the seven deadly sins, right? I wonder if they'll truly exist now that this has become a reality.'

As the fire started, the Granitects scrambled to create two large Tripods to hold up the meat.

Once that was done, she began spinning the large slab with the stick they impaled. Her units sure were intuitive. She's only ever seen these rudimentary devices created in survival videos. If she were to try, she wouldn't even be confident in starting a fire on her first try, much less making anything from the videos.

"Its internal temperature will be impossible to get right without proper equipment. Perfection is a luxury we don't have right now, I suppose."

While cooking the massive wolf steak, Alchemy hummed to herself in a low tone as she looked around. There, Sapphire was resting at the spot she decided to take over, the side of Alchemy's throne.

"Sapphire was a herbivore, right? Hey, Sylvies. Have you seen any berries or fruits while you were gathering resources?"

{Yes, but we couldn't identify any of them. They were like nothing we've ever seen before.}

"Go gather as many as you can while I finish making this. Sapphire has lived here so they'll probably know what can and can't be eaten by her."

{The deer? We're going out of our way for a weak deer?}

Alchemy gave the Sylvan Carvers an unamused glare.

"Okay, firstly, that "weak deer" could probably kill all of us if they put their heart to it. Secondly, It has barely been half an hour since I talked about you kids having tact. Don't make me repeat myself, please."

Although the deer's stats weren't all that high, their danger rating was still A. Alchemy thought its stats would be higher, but its total was around the same as hers after hitting level 7…

This meant that the criteria for factoring one's danger rating were also one of the changes from game to reality. Whatever that was, Sapphire had it, making the system think they were pretty dangerous.

{We… We apologize, Mother…} The Sylvan Carvers said, scurrying away.

Alchemy didn't like having to tell them off. Her Civilians' happiness was directly tied to how much Divine Power she got each day, but she needed to set some ground rules.

Surprisingly, that didn't lower the happiness, which had stagnated at 94% since Sapphire.

'This is nothing. It'll become infinitely harder than this if I wish to breach racial walls and create a multi-race nation. Multi-species nation? I need to focus.'

At the end of that thought, it hit her. The cold breeze of the coming night, that was.

"Wait?! Where are my clothes?!"