NOVEL NEXT Chapter 117
Having taken care of that, it was time to get back to my planned order of business and continue upgrading the buildings in the order they appeared in my list. That brought me to one of the most important structures in case of an attack—the walls hadn’t exactly been paramount to our defense against Typhon, but that had been a very special kind of attack.
Enemies as powerful as Typhon were rare and the walls we had now, along with all the extra defenses, would already have been helpful against other enemies. Upgrading them to the maximum level would be absolutely integral to our defense now, considering the brewing storm that would eventually reach us.
* * *
Name: Walls
Level: 5
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 100,000x Lumber Units (1,000,000 MP)
1,500,000x Iron Units (15,000,000 MP)
3,000,000x Stone Units (30,000,000 MP)
Level-Up Time: 30,720 minutes (18,432,000 MP)
Description: A thick wall of metal-reinforced concrete that surrounds the entire city. The wall is wide enough to allow dozens of people to patrol its length and it is a great defense against colossal-sized enemies. It can withstand significant non-magical damage and minimal magical damage, and it is possible to arm its edges with medium-sized artillery.
* * *
The cost was significantly larger than the other buildings, and by this point most of our stored materials were surely beginning to run out. The cost of instantaneous construction of the walls would be more than sixty million MP—high compared to the previous buildings, but still quite low considering our available pool.
Purchasing all of the materials with MP caused quite a ruckus. The heavy construction units appeared with a deafening crash all around the walls. A circular cloud of dust rose up right before the wood, iron, and stone started swirling and turning, creating small twisters of dirt.
I was looking forward to the walls being reconstructed and seeing a change of this magnitude take place, but I could only see shadows behind the clouds of dust and dirt. But what a sight it was when it finally settled: a colossal structure that towered over everything in our town, making it look like a hamlet. The shadows it threw over the buildings had people moving to their windows to see why their houses had suddenly been robbed of the final rays of the day’s sun.
The wall was made of flat stone that looked like it would never crumble or even chip, no matter how hard it was hit. Just as I was about to pull up the new description, a hissing sound echoed all around the town. It didn’t sound violent or urgent, more like the wind rustling through tight crevices. And then I saw what was happening.
The walls were lowering into the ground. They didn't simply collapse, so as not to completely destroy anything and anyone that might be on top of them, but they were moving quite fast, considering their size. Once only a few feet remained above the ground, they stopped, essentially becoming a low fence that did nothing to obstruct the beautiful views of the setting sun, the clouds over the top of the mountain and the tops of the trees.
* * *
Name: Walls
Level: 6 (Maximum)
Description: A thick wall of metal-reinforced concrete that surrounds the entire city. The wall is wide enough to allow dozens of people to patrol its length and it is a great defense against enemies, regardless of their size. It can withstand any non-magical damage and a significant amount of magical damage, and it is also possible to arm its edges with large-sized artillery. Additionally, the walls will now retreat into the ground when not needed, but remain ready to fully expand within thirty seconds when required for defensive purposes.
* * *
Not only would this significantly boost the feeling of security for anyone coming to live here but it also meant the beautiful environment surrounding our town wouldn’t be hidden from residents. Aphrodite had once mentioned that at some point we might get into trouble with citizens jealous of their neighbors whose houses could see above the walls. I didn’t think there was much I could do about it at the time. I’d thought of ways to try and make these inequalities more bearable, so that the issue wouldn’t fester and become a bigger problem in the long run, but the solution provided by the walls themselves was infinitely better and much simpler.
"What was all that trembling?" Artemis asked in the guild chat. "Did you feel an earthquake?"
"Probably another of Zeus's upgrades," Aphrodite said.
"What kind of upgrade could be heard so deep in the mountain?" Artemis asked again.
"The walls," I explained. "Not only are they much stronger and taller now, but they can also retreat into the ground."
"No more blocking the views?" Aphrodite said.
"Exactly! Everyone will be happy now," I said. "And wait till you see the new names of some of the buildings."
I closed the guild chat and pulled up the list of construction projects again. The sun had set now, and I still hadn't even finished upgrading the basic buildings in the town. I needed to work faster if I wanted everything at maximum level before I went to bed.
* * *
Name: Mana Generator #4
Level: 5
Output: 13,000 MP/minute
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 1,800x Iron Units (16,000 MP)
Level-Up Time: 6,000 minutes (3,600,000 MP)
Description: Mana Generators are large devices that, once ignited, can concentrate mana particles around places of power and push them to their core. Generators are the only way to increase the passive MP regeneration rate of places of power besides leveling up their cores. Increases MP Regeneration Rate by 13,000 MP/minute.
* * *
At the moment there wasn’t a particularly pressing reason why I should upgrade the mana generators, or why I would need to build any new ones. Level six was the highest level we could reach, and so far it looked like we had enough mana to instantly build everything available to us anyway.
On the other hand, there was a category of perpetual construction projects that I was almost certain would utilize MP without any limits. And I was sure that building mana generators instantly would make a return on its investment quite soon, so ultimately it made sense.
The amount of extra MP our guild core would collect in the time it would take to build each mana generator manually was more than the amount we would save. The same had been true at all levels so far. I didn't see how it might be worse for the last level of the generators, since the yields were much greater than for all other buildings.
I upgraded all four of the generators we had and then batch accepted construction of the remaining thirty-six to build them around the original ones. The initial investment to spark each mana generator was ten million MP, meaning that the total cost of getting all forty of them to level six was more than half a billion.
After all the construction was completed and our guild had forty level-six mana generators, I opened the overview to see how much mana we were now earning per minute.
* * *
Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm
Name: Mount Olympus
Level: 6 (Maximum)
State: Idle
MP: 322,851,157,815
MP Generation: 1,006,000 MP/minute
Population: 10,149
Lumber: 7,027
Iron: 5,157
Food Rations: 42,255
* * *
The jump in the amount of MP generated per minute was incredible. I knew that the guild core being level six meant that it generated six thousand MP per minute by itself, but that meant the other million was coming from the generators alone.
* * *
Name: Mana Generator #40
Level: 6 (Maximum)
Output: 25,000 MP/minute
Description: Mana Generators are large devices that, once ignited, can concentrate mana particles around places of power and push them to their core. Generators are the only way to increase the passive MP regeneration rate of places of power besides leveling up their cores. Increases MP Regeneration Rate by 25,000 MP/minute. Additionally, all generators can be linked with each other to be used as defensive devices, striking targets with the mana they generate.
* * *
The added benefits kept surprising me. Not only had their MP generation rates almost doubled, but now they could also be used as defensive devices. After all, just sitting there gaining MP while we were under attack wouldn’t exactly be very useful, so being able to use the generators as weapons was more than welcome.
Having seen that we were now gaining more than a million MP per minute, I wanted to work out how much that would be per day. Sixty minutes times twenty-four hours, times one million, was almost one and a half billion MP. The upgrades I’d carried out so far and the cost of constructing the wonder were still immense but not completely out of reach anymore.
Having such a massive inflow of mana to our guild core simplified a lot of things. I now knew that everything would be possible as long as we had enough patience for it. Not wanting to dwell much more on it, I pulled up the information for my next upgrades.
* * *
Name: Magic Thunder Coil Defenses #4
Level: 5
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 200x Lumber Units (2,000 MP)
300,000x Copper Units (3,000,000 MP)
300,000x Iron Units (3,000,000 MP)
Level-Up Time: 7,680 minutes (4,608,000 MP)
Description: A colossal metal coil-like structure that has the unique ability to condense the mana in the atmosphere and release it in bursts of energy against enemies. The coils built in the guildhall of Mount Olympus use the element of their patron deity, the thunderbolt. Additionally, the coils can be retracted and completely hidden underground.
* * *
When I upgraded them, the number of coil defenses available to us also jumped from four to forty and I couldn't have been happier with it. I knew that Cronus and Hyperion were not fools. If they ever attacked us here, they would expect to find some kind of defenses. But a fully upgraded wall, mana generators blasting them, and a full set of maxed out thunder coils would be far beyond their expectations.
I placed each of the newly available ones on the walls, running the whole perimeter, after making sure that their range could cover the whole surface area of the town inside. Once they were all constructed, I batch-upgraded them, spending more than half a billion MP there as well.
The structures gained a few additional coils and now looked more like some kind of magical white cypress trees that coursed with lightning. And the low hum that echoed all around us when the coils activated made clear that their appearance wasn't the only thing upgraded about them.
* * *
Name: Magic Thunder Coil Defenses #40
Level: 6
Description: A colossal metal coil-like structure that has the unique ability to condense the mana in the atmosphere and release it in bursts of energy against enemies. The coils built in the guildhall of Mount Olympus use the element of their patron deity, the thunderbolt. Additionally, the coils can be retracted and completely hidden underground. Finally, the coils can be connected with each other and their collective charge used to strike at stronger enemies.
* * *
Alright, so there were no numeric upgrades on them but the fact that they could combine their might to strike a single enemy was useful. It kind of made me wish I’d had this ability when Typhon had attacked us. Forty maxed out thunder coils with the aid of another forty generators would have made that battle a lot easier.
On the other hand, knowledge about our defenses might have reached our enemies by now if that had been the case, and I liked the idea of serving them a nice surprise. And what a surprise it would be if anyone attacked us now.
"We'll be heading back soon, Hephaestus," Artemis said in the guild chat.
"You get anything good?" the god of the forge asked.
"More of what you asked for," Artemis replied. "There are a lot of metals and precious stones at this depth, but it's kind of hard to look for specific things.”
“Thank you for trying,” he replied. “We might already have enough to craft everyone’s A-grade equipment, but it doesn't hurt to have a bit more. Just to be on the safe side."
"Yeah, no worries. Anyway, we'll be back soon."
"I'll be waiting," Hephaestus said, ending the conversation.
It looked like I needed to pick up speed even more if I wanted to finish before everyone returned home. At least I only had three construction projects left now from the guild's main list.