NOVEL NEXT Chapter 38
Available Construction Projects:
Tent (10/20)
Storage Shack (1/1)
Farm (0/4)
Lumberyard (0/1)
Mining Camp (0/1)
Blacksmith’s Workshop (0/1)
* * *
Although the mana generators hadn’t made their appearance yet, I could now house even more people and raise other buildings that would help maintain this place. And the cost of the resources was still quite low at the moment, especially compared to the amount of MP I had at my disposal.
But I knew that wouldn’t last forever and the best thing I could do to make the settlement last and prosper in the long term was to invest in the aspects that would allow it to grow over time. The mana generators were the pinnacle of this strategy because mana could be used everywhere, but everything I stored in resources would be mana allocated to something I was lacking.
I had already made up my mind about building and upgrading everything before leveling up, at least for now, but wanted to check something else in the meantime. The level-up notification had mentioned unlocking a divine realm construction project so I pulled up that selection and felt my jaw drop.
* * *
Available Divine Realm Construction Projects
Divine Portal (0/1) - Divine Realm Construction
* * *
I wasn’t expecting to be able to build a portal for a few more levels, which was why I was rushing to level the settlement up. While I was willing to spend all the mana I needed to just now, there were some things we’d need to do that would definitely benefit from having some of our followers be able to travel—and perhaps even stay—up here.
If this portal was anything like the one my father used on Mount Orthys, it would allow followers of the gods assigned to it to be able to cross through it and cover large distances. I doubted I would be able to set one up much further that the general area surrounding the mountain but that was all I needed for now really.
If a connection was established between the town of Dion and the settlement, it would accelerate the growth of both of them exponentially. Completely disregarding the new regular building projects, I focused on the portal to gather more information about it and its cost.
* * *
Name: Divine Portal
Resources Needed: 4x Stone Unit (40 MP)
5 Divinity Points
Construction Time: 2000 minutes (1,200,000 MP)
Description: A two-way portal that can be permanently placed at a distance of up to 15 miles from the guild core. These portals allow for instantaneous teleportation between them with no limitations on size and numbers other than the size of the portal opening itself.
* * *
The construction time had a very high cost, which was still in line with the 10 MP per second rule, but one point two million MP was nothing to joke about. Again, I felt very lucky that we had discovered a place of power that had stayed dormant for so long. After all, one million MP was nothing compared to the hundreds of billions I’d still have.
What was more important was that I would be able to start bringing people up here as soon as tomorrow. Production and resource gathering could start immediately and I would be able to minimize some of the costs of constructing other new buildings.
I mentally clicked on the stone units and purchased them, making them appear right next to the marble pillar that housed the guild core. I was even more grateful now for the fact that my DP had been completely replenished, since it might have taken quite some time for my followers to regenerate five of them on their own.
With the Divine Portal view in front of me, I selected “Construction time” until the prompt I was waiting for appeared.
* * *
You can completely skip the construction process of the Divine Portal at the cost of 10 MP per second.
Would you like to do so for a total of 1200000 MP?
Yes No
* * *
Seeing the cost like this, I realized that I didn’t want to dish out this much mana in one go just yet. It wasn’t like I would be able to build this portal on my own, but I didn’t actually need it instantly and a mana worker would be able to do an equally great job for one tenth of the cost. I accessed the menu with the mana workers and received a similar prompt.
I agreed and, almost immediately, the frame of a ten foot stone arch appeared in front of me. It looked to be about five feet in width, which meant that it was too narrow for anything more than people and perhaps livestock to pass through. That didn’t matter much at the moment though since that was likely all I would need it for.
I placed the portal close to the storage unit since I figured it might be useful in the future for easier transfer of resources. Though as soon as I decided on the placement, I wondered whether it would be possible to move things afterward.
The answer would have to wait though, since when I confirmed the placement of the portal, I felt my consciousness and viewpoint suddenly exit my body and fly high in the sky. From up there, I could see the whole mountain, Dion, and everything else in range of the portal’s construction limits.
I tried zooming in on different areas of Dion and finally decided to put the gate right between the village and the port. This way, people that might be arriving from the sea would be able to visit the guildhall easily, which was something my father had made extremely difficult with his palace. What’s more, trading goods wouldn’t have to be carried along long stretches of land to reach the portal if they came by ship. And finally, in the case that the village was attacked by land—since sea attackers would be spotted more easily—the people would have a path to evacuate instead of being stranded between their enemies and the water.
Once the portal was placed, I felt the irresistible urge to blink and when I opened my eyes, I was standing on top of the mountain again, overlooking the orb. The mana worker was already placing the stones for the portal and using what looked like a thick golden liquid to make them stick together without moving too much.
At the rate the worker was going, I guessed that it wouldn’t take much longer than a couple of hours to finish building the portal, which is when the construction of the other end would start. Since this didn’t require my attention now, I opened the guildhall overview to see what I needed to do in order to reach the next level.
* * *
Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm
Name: Mount Olympus
Level: 2
State: Idle
MP: 327,509,996,611
MP Generation: 10 MP/minute
Timber: 0
Iron: 0
Food Rations: 0
Buildings: Divine Portal (0.01% completed)
Level-Up Requirement: 10x Level 2 Houses (0)
2x Level 2 Farms (0)
1000 Food Rations (0)
1000 Lumber Units (0)
1000 Iron Units (0)
Level-Up Cost: 1000 MP
Level-Up Time: 8 hours
* * *
The requirement for ten level two houses immediately caught my attention. Since there was no such building available in the construction menu, it could only mean that this was an upgraded version of an already existing building. And the only ones that fit the bill were the tents.
I selected a tent at random and pulled up its information.
* * *
Name: Tent #7
Level: 1
Occupants: 0/4
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 2 (Met)
Level-Up Cost: 10x Lumber Units (100 MP)
1x Iron Units (10 MP)
1x Misc Building Units (10 MP)
Level-Up Time: 1 hour (36,000 MP)
Description: The most basic form of shelter from the weather. Can fit up to four humanoid individuals.
* * *
As expected, it was now possible to upgrade the tent though I could still couldn’t imagine how that would be possible. The materials needed for the upgrade resembled the storage building much more than the tents, and the storage shack in turn was much more similar to what I expected a house to look like.
Without thinking too much about it, I spent the 120 MP needed for the materials and had them delivered in front of me. It would make sense to employ a mana worker to upgrade the tents, as well as build any new ones, but for now I wanted to see what would happen when a tent was upgraded, so I opted to skip the whole hour of upgrading by paying 36,000 MP to see the tent transformed before my eyes. The lumber pieces were cut, sanded, and arranged in place of the tent walls. The roof looked identical to the storage shack, while the leather was used as covers for the openings that served as the entrance and windows.
Within seconds, a house with no frills or decorations but which was still a hundred times more appealing and comfortable-looking than the tent appeared in front of me. It didn’t look anything like the luxurious estates the citizens of other godly settlements had lived in when I visited them, but it was a start. And my followers would definitely be much more comfortable in the houses than sleeping on the floor, provided that they furnished them.
* * *
Name: House #7
Level: 2
Occupants: 0/6
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 3
Level-Up Cost: ??
Level-Up Time: ??
Description: A very simple wooden house. What this house lacks in luxury, it more than makes up for in terms of coziness. This building is able to comfortably house six humanoids, and it also has a small fireplace for the purpose of cooking and heating, as well as a small privy chamber.
* * *
Six people in each house was a significant increase, especially since I could now have twenty buildings instead of ten. A hundred and twenty citizens, or rather workers and gatherers, able to live here would definitely help speed things up.
Before going ahead with creating the rest of the available buildings, I got mana workers to set up the ten additional tents the guildhall’s level now allowed for. Within a few seconds, I had placed ten more tents and the workers set them up.
Compared to the 36,000 MP I had just spent to instantly raise the first house, I wasn’t worried at all about the almost 7,000 MP needed for the workers to upgrade all tents over the next hour. I wasn’t going to wait for it either way. Not when I had more construction projects to get through.
I pulled up the list of projects I could continue with and thought through my options.
* * *
Available Construction Projects:
Tent (20/20)
Storage Shack (1/1)
Farm (0/4)
Lumberyard (0/1)
Mining Camp (0/1)
Blacksmith’s Workshop (0/1)
* * *