Mountain of the Immortals

“I thought you were deaf,” she said.

“I’m upgrading the tent to a house,” I said. “It should be safe though. It’s supposed to take an hour in total.”

“Upgrading the tent already?” she asked, surprised. “Aren’t you one busy god?”

“Not just this tent,” I said, and puffed out my chest with pride. “All twenty of them.”

“Twenty?” she said, this time shocked. “When did you…? You didn’t bring people up here already, did you?”

“Mana workers,” I said, caressing her long hair. “And not just houses. Starting tomorrow, we’ll have a portal to connect us to Dion, a lumberyard, a mining camp, a big storage room, and four farms. Oh, and a blacksmith’s workshop.”

“Just when did you manage to do all of that?” she said, running her nails lightly across my chest.

“While you were in here having fun by yourself,” I said with a smile. “And that’s not even the best part. In less than eight hours, we’re going to have a level three guildhall.”

“Already? Level three? That is incredible.”

“It is, but we’ll have to wait for the whole eight hours,” I said, a tiny bit disappointed.

“I wonder what we could do to kill some time,” she said, biting my earlobe.

* * *

The next day I woke under a high, wooden ceiling with the leather covering the doorway of our level two house flapping in the morning breeze. Aphrodite was covered by the furs and had turned her back on me during the night.

I stood up feeling completely rejuvenated.

My followers had earned me another DP while I was sleeping—or otherwise too occupied to notice—and a bunch of prompts were now flashing in the periphery of my vision. I assumed they were notifications about the buildings having been upgraded or built and that the guildhall had leveled up.

But all that could wait for a few minutes. I put on some simple breeches and left the house, taking in the beautiful sunrise from the top of Mount Olympus. I stretched my limbs and wondered whether the place of power had anything to do with me feeling like I’d rested every single muscle of my body.

The feeling was great and the sun’s rays shining through the clouds made me feel exactly like what I had set out to be. The king of the world.

But I wasn’t quite yet. There was still work to be done.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Artemis said, and I turned to face her.

She was wearing brown leather tights and a leather top that more closely resembled a wide belt.

“Really beautiful,” I said, looking her straight in the eyes.

“You’ve made a lot of changes to this place already,” she said, after a moment of awkward silence. “It’s beginning to look like a real settlement.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” I said proudly, and looked around. “The most important part is this though.”

I looked over at the portal and immediately its notification popped back up in the center of my view.

* * *

The construction project “Divine Portal” has been successfully completed.

* * *

“We can start bringing people up here now,” I said, turning to face the houses that had already been finished. “The best of them can even stay here.”

“Allow me to do that,” she offered.

“Do what?” I asked. “Bring them here?”

“I will find the most suitable people for the jobs you’re looking for and convince them to come here.”

“I don’t want people to come here because they’re scared,” I warned. “They should be willing to come and live here. And you need to let them know that there is housing for them here and that they can leave whenever they want.”

“I will make it so,” she said, nodding. “What are the professions you’re looking for?”

“We definitely need at least one smith,” I said, starting by pointing out the blacksmith’s workshop, which prompted another of the notifications.

* * *

The construction project “Blacksmith’s Workshop” has been successfully completed.

* * *

“Then we need some foragers,” I continued. “From hunters and gatherers to lumberjacks and miners.”

“Can they also bring their families?” Artemis asked.

“I doubt all of them will come without their families and we want stability here,” I replied. “I don’t want daredevils with nothing to lose. Only honest, stable people.”

“Got it loud and clear,” she said, and bowed slightly. “Anything else?”

“Just get smart people,” I told her. “If we get smart people to come up here, we’ll eventually find a job for them. We’ve got space for a few more than one hundred, and I bet we’ll be able to start building even more houses today.”

“Great. Is that all?”

“That should be all,” I said, but I grabbed her strong arm before she could walk away. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Of course,” she said, before stepping away.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said.

I watched as she walked through the archway, which looked like it contained only a thin yellow coat film. However, when I looked through it, I couldn’t see what was actually on the other side of it here on Mount Olympus, but rather the green field between the town of Dion and its harbor.

Confident that Artemis would do a killer job with the villagers of Dion, I turned to look at the houses.

* * *

The construction projects “House #11-#20” have been successfully completed.

* * *

I had no doubt the new guildhall level would have unlocked even more houses but I wasn’t in a hurry to find out just how many. Of course I was keen to see what new buildings would have been unlocked, but I wanted to check that all the other constructions had been completed successfully first.

* * *

The construction projects “Farm #3-#4” have been successfully completed.

* * *

As I looked at the farms, I thought I should have mentioned to Artemis that she could bring livestock already too, but I hoped that she would have already seen them and known that. In any case, it wouldn’t take much effort for the villagers to go back and bring their animals now.

Next, I looked to the west, where the blacksmith’s workshop was standing proud and open for business, waiting for its new master. Right next to it was the mining camp that looked exactly how I had seen it when I placed it there, right before the mana workers started building it.

* * *

The construction project “Mining Camp” has been successfully completed.

* * *

The Mining Camp looked like it came with many of the tools that would be needed for its operation, such as metal carts on wheels, pickaxes, shovels, and the like. The same was true for the blacksmith’s workshop, which contained a furnace, a great anvil, and what looked like tools for smelting and metal working.

The last building I checked was the storage shack that had now been upgraded too.

* * *

The construction project “Storage Shack” has been successfully completed.

* * *

Not only was the building taller but from what I could see as I walked closer to it, it actually had proper roofing that could withstand any harsh weather as well as tall metal shelves that rose from the ground all the way up to the ceiling. This was really starting to look like a proper storage facility and not just a wooden shed in which to place things.

Even the arrangement of the shelves inside looked like some thought had gone into it. There was a wooden ladder on rails on one side, reinforced with metal, which would enable easy reach to even the highest of them. And there were already a few large jars with lids, boxes, and containers of all shapes and sizes to make organizing our resources even easier.

As I looked at the size of the building, I thought about how many things we’d be able to store and that we should probably get some kind of protection for it all. Which was when I realized that I hadn’t seen the central pillar, where the guild core was located, among the new buildings.

I ran out of the storage unit and scanned around for the pillar but couldn’t see it anywhere. I headed for the place where it had been yesterday and as soon as I got into the vicinity, the ground below the spot parted and the large white marble pillar slowly emerged from the earth.

Only now it wasn’t plain white. It had markings and embellishments on it. It looked like a master-carver had gone to work on it, though of course no mortal would have managed such beauty and such a large amount of work in the few hours I’d been asleep.

The orb was still in the same position, though it was now framed by a golden ring. Reassured that everything was okay and in its proper place, I walked away and watched as the pillar disappeared back into the earth.

The people Artemis would bring would be loyal followers of mine, but it still probably wouldn’t hurt to hide the orb from them. It wasn’t like I was expecting them to maliciously spread information about where the heart of my place of power was located, but mortals did boast and pride was more often than not their downfall, so I could never be too careful.

Having checked on the progress of all the construction projects, I pulled up the last notification that was flashing in my periphery.

* * *

Congratulations, you have upgraded the Guildhall - Divine Realm: Mount Olympus to level 3.

You can now upgrade all upgradable buildings to level 3.

You have unlocked 4 new construction projects.

You have unlocked 1 new divine realm construction project.

* * *

Without thinking about it for even a second, I looked at the available divine realm construction projects. The portal was incredible and would significantly boost the rate of growth for our settlement, so I was immediately intrigued to see that I had another divine realm project ready to build.

* * *

Available Divine Realm Construction Projects:

Divine Portal (1/1) - Divine Realm Construction

God’s Watchtower (0/1) - Divine Realm Construction

* * *

I had no idea how a watchtower of the divine sort would work, but I knew that I had to have it as soon as I saw it. Focusing on the building’s name, a new window appeared and I immediately absorbed the information about its cost and exactly what it was.

* * *

Name: God’s Watchtower

Resources Needed: 400x Stone Unit (4000 MP)

5 Divinity Points

Construction Time: 2000 minutes (1,200,000 MP)

Description: This watchtower was created with the single purpose of guarding the realm of the god who controls it. At the expense of 1 Divinity Point per day, said god will be notified when a creature of significant power enters a range of 100 miles.

* * *

The materials didn’t really cost much in terms of MP, though now that we would soon have people up here I would have preferred if I could let my followers gather what I needed instead of spending the guild core’s MP. In this case though, I would have no issue with spending 4,000 MP to build this marvelous construct and see what it could do.