Mountain of the Immortals

Everyday life at the top of Mount Olympus had never been busier. Our XP farming sessions were more intensive than ever, starting well before the sun was up and ending only when we’d reached the percentage goal we had set for the day. Our goal was, of course, to get Hephaestus to level sixty-one.

That would mean he would be able to use A-grade equipment, but—more importantly for us—he would also be able to craft A-grade weapons, specifically an A-grade weapon that could kill titans. When he joined our guild he was already level sixty, and around fifteen percent of the way to level sixty-one.

I would also need to get to that level to be able to wield it, and I was just a bit above twelve percent of the way there. This was a group effort really, since we were all helping with XPing, especially since we would all be able to upgrade to A-grade armor, weapons, and accessories once we leveled up. I doubted Artemis would want to trade in her +17 bow, even though it was C-grade, but I had no doubt Ares and Aphrodite could use a new set of weapons.

We still hadn’t figured out how we would get our hands on new armor, boots, helmets, and gloves to raise our Physical Defense, or rings, earrings, and necklaces to boost our Magic Defense. Hephaestus would definitely be able to craft some for us but there were two problems with that. The first was that we didn’t know what kind of materials he would need, as he hadn’t even unlocked that skill yet. All we could really do to prepare was amass every kind of exotic metal and precious ore we came across, while also pushing our miners to their limits to get more. The second issue was that he would be the only crafter able to create all of our A-grade items and that would require time. Our resident pygmy crafters would no doubt help refine the ores and craft the items up to the grade their levels would allow, but the final process would all fall on him.

And that would be fine if we weren't so pressed for time. Hyperion had given us a strict deadline of sixty days during which he would overlook Hephaestus’ stay with us, something known only to those in our guild. After that deadline, he demanded he be returned to him. This was, of course, out of the question, and we had no intention of returning him.

But if Hyperion came for us and we weren't prepared, we wouldn't stand a chance against him. Our plan was to get to level sixty-one in fifty days and spend the remaining ten days crafting and preparing for battle.

This meant that we needed to gain around 5.7% of XP every day. Our XP tactics were streamlined to the maximum and, most of the time, the XP we gained per hour ranged from 0.46% to 0.48%. This meant that we had to XP for more than twelve hours straight every day to hit our goal. It was much more brutal than our previous daily XP sessions but this time there were no complaints at all. After all, it wasn't something we were doing just for ourselves. We needed to get stronger in order to protect Hephaestus, our newest guild member.

Thus, day after day, we woke up in the middle of the night and met in our usual XP-farming spot. And that would have been perfectly fine if we got to enjoy the rest of the day. But running a guild and a bustling town filled with believers and people who needed guidance and orders was not easy.

With barely any time left to ourselves after a day of killing monsters, we had to deal with the monster of managing people and Olympus. Ares was doing his best to train our generals in the tactics of large-scale battles and the instructors on melee fighting, so they could in turn teach the rest of our troops.

On the odd days that he had half an hour to spare, he would spend it communicating with our operatives from the Intelligence Agency.

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Name: Intelligence Agency

Level: 5

Operatives: 8/8

Assignments: Espionage - Information Gathering (0)

Espionage - Steal Technology (0)

Sabotage - Incite Discord (0)

Sabotage - Active Planning or Technological Sabotage (0)

Surveillance - Keeping Tabs on High-Risk Individuals (0)

Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6

Resources Needed: 3,600x Lumber Units (36,000 MP)

Level-Up Time: 8,000 minutes (4,800,000 MP)

Description: Intelligence operatives serve their city in the darkest shadows and deepest crevices of the Apocosmos. When there is information that might be of benefit to their homeland, these agents would sacrifice even their own lives in order to acquire it. Having an Intelligence Agency means that a city is interested in becoming a major player in the web that is the Apocosmos. Pieces of information may start flowing toward the masters of the agency almost immediately after its construction, and targeted espionage becomes available during wartime or for financial gain.

* * *

As I had instructed, two of the eight spies we had available were sent to Niflheim to gather information on Modi and Magni, the two sons of Thor whom we had a brief encounter with while trying to recruit Ares. I wanted to make sure that the trouble we had started there would not come back to bite us in the ass later. At least not when we were fighting other battles.

The rest of the operatives were busy infiltrating organizations, cities, and temples related to Cronus. The information they’d been feeding us hadn’t been particularly useful yet, save for something they all agreed on. Cronus was preparing himself for an attack on a grand scale.

None of them could give us specific timeframes, so the best we could do was hope that this attack didn’t reach us before we were able to strike ourselves. That, and making sure that once we were ready to go on the offensive, Cronus would be sabotaged in every way possible: from letting his believers know what a shitty god he was so they would stop believing in him, to cutting his supply of provisions in the days leading to the attack. All of these plans were heavily dependent on time. We would only able to make them happen if Cronus didn't make a move first.

While Ares worked with our forces, Artemis made sure that our supply lines were operating with maximum efficiency. Our citizens who were responsible for bringing in wood were now always accompanied by battalions from the fighting academies. A better quality of wood could be found in deeper areas of the forest, but they were usually monster-infested.

Having warriors able to XP around the lumberjacks was a win-win situation for both groups, and Artemis always made sure it wasn't anything they wouldn't be able to handle—staying on call in case they ever got in too much trouble. She rarely went with them, however, since it was the miners who had a more important job at the moment.

She always tried to let both camps know that their efforts were appreciated and equally helpful to the town, but the lumberyard was what the town needed in times of peace. The mining camp was critical in times of war. And these were indeed times of war.

The miners were working around the clock, bringing metals and precious ores back to the blacksmith's workshop to be turned into equipment. When Artemis was done with our training each day, she would take a battalion from Ares and the strongest of the miners and go even deeper inside the mountain. The things the miners brought back from those deep tunnels would likely be the first materials needed for our A-grade equipment. For this reason, Artemis was doing her best to push them to their limits while making sure they were all safe from the significantly stronger monsters that existed underground.

After all this, she sometimes visited the blacksmith's workshop to make sure the supply line was running smoothly before retreating for the night. Her and Hephaestus had grown very fond of each other since he’d joined us.

Hephaestus spent most of what little free time he had in the workshop. When he wasn't crafting materials, weapons, armor, and accessories himself, he would be teaching the other blacksmiths what he could. From new recipes and techniques to tips that would help improve their crafting times and eliminate waste of materials.

Needless to say, he always came back home exhausted. It was hard not to appreciate all the effort he was putting and at times I scolded myself for not deciding that we wouldn't just hand him back to Hyperion earlier. He was a hard worker and never asked for anything in return.

Aphrodite was especially appreciative of his presence in our town and even more so in our house. Despite these being very difficult times, Hephaestus becoming part of our town had opened up a lot of diplomatic opportunities for Aphrodite, who was still handling this part of our business.

From the moment we returned from our daily training sessions, she had a series of merchants, ambassadors, and nobles waiting to meet her. From proposals of new trading partnerships and requests for permission to set up new pilgrimage routes to our wonder of worship temple, all the way to outright donations.

Aphrodite's job was probably the most difficult of all, since she would go from our extremely physically demanding XP sessions to a task that required interaction with mortals. And not only that, but she needed to do it all with a smile on her face. That was where Hephaestus joining us made her job a tiny bit easier.

The news of his arrival was spreading either way so there was no reason why Aphrodite should keep it a secret from her visitors. And having the god of the forge with us meant that our town’s reputation continued to grow, as we would soon be churning out one magic sword, lance, bow, or what-have-you after the other.

The last thing that Aphrodite took care of each day, right before resting, was making sure to retrieve the magic items that were created by the manifestation altar, as well as picking up the ambrosia from the hexagonal prismatic ambrosia cell tower so that a new portion could be generated. We might have had a good quantity of ambrosia stored already, but it was never a bad idea to increase that number since we were heading to war.

My daily tasks and responsibilities were perhaps the ones that were the most non-standard of all the gods on Olympus. On a daily basis, I had to make sure that the amount of resources we were trading in and out were balanced. We did want money flowing into our town while keeping our citizens, as well as the citizens of Dion, happy but that wasn't the only goal.

We had to continue growing the amount of resources we had stored in our warehouses. Gold would be of little use to us if we needed to build stronger walls or even just repair the ones we had. This balancing act and trying to ingrain the need for it into the citizens responsible for managing warehouse stocks was one of my priorities.

I also made sure to walk through our communities and visit our place of worship often. I wanted the people to see me. Aphrodite had told me that there were pilgrims who came from quite far away and having them finally meet their deity meant that they would return home with a great story to tell, a story that would in turn become fuel for more pilgrims to go on this journey. And since each successfully completed pilgrimage provided us with XP proportionate to the distance covered, this was one of the most important investments in our futures as gods of the Greek world.

My daily walks, if they could be called that, did not stop there. I made a point to visit our buildings on a rotating schedule. It was pretty obvious that our hard-working people got an extra boost in their performance right after I visited them and complimented their hard efforts. But all these tasks were part of gearing myself up for the day that was now upon us.

I had been anxiously waiting for the day our town would be ready to level up and more upgrades would be unlocked. Every time I woke up I would look at the countdown timer, and I’d do it again right before falling to sleep. A total of more than thirty-four and a half thousand minutes were needed to get our guildhall from level five to level six. Twenty-four whole days that we weren’t even able to skip by using the guild's mana reserves. I had informed our people leading up to this day that we would need an abundance of materials, which meant that our coffers were rather light but our warehouses were gearing up for the slew of upgrades.

We had already finished our training for the day and were walking back to the town when I got the notification.

* * *

Congratulations, you have upgraded the Guildhall - Divine Realm: Mount Olympus to level 6.

This is the maximum level for a Divine Realm.

Perpetual construction projects are now available.

You can now upgrade all upgradable buildings to level 6.

You have unlocked 1 new construction project.

You have unlocked 1 new divine realm construction project.

You have unlocked 1 new enhanced guild core construction project.

You have unlocked 3 new perpetual construction projects.

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