Scorching Ascension - [Progression Litrpg Apocalypse]

As soon as Ethan saw the red dots on the reconnaissance module, he wanted to fly over the new wilderness that covered the city he grew up in and go check them out. But he didn't. Glancing around the overgrown grounds of property and seeing the crowd that had joined his pylon, milling about under the afternoon sun, talking and generally waiting for his decision, he knew he shouldn't. Not just yet.

But the expectations were making him itch to go. There was just something so simple about dealing with invading monsters. He just had to sling spells and fight and that would be that. But people?

It's a whole other thing. But I got the solution for this…

In this sort of situation, someone had to take over and manage things out. As the highest leveled individual here, and as the administrator of the pylon, that role seemed to come down to him by default. But Ethan didn't want to deal with any of that. Not even if he were paid for it. Which was why he was dropping that responsibility on the people he trusted the most. And one he was lukewarm toward at best.

As much as he wanted to keep her under surveillance, Amanda seemed to be perfect for the role. While Liz, Amelie, and the others he trusted, they weren't up for the administrative work. He had asked. Liz and Gerald wanted to work on keeping their space secure, while Amelie and Diego had already started doing rounds and picking off any dangerous beasts that were prowling too close to the camp, and once the protections of the camp were up, they wanted to head to one of the rifts as well. Having missed out on the one Ethan had explored in the tutorial, they wanted to catch up.

As for Audrey, she wanted to start going through the survivors and getting them up to speed and see what they could bring to the table. With a group this large, they were bound to find a few capable non-combatant that they ought to nurture.

Which left one person he knew could handle some logistical tasks.

Brining the slightly disheveled but still bright eyed Amanda a few paces away from the crowd, Ethan laid it all down as Liz and Gerald stood at his side. "I'm going to give Gerald, Liz, Audrey, and Amelie a vice-administrator role, temporarily. You're also getting it so you can access the construction module, but you can only create change requests that have to be approved by the other vice-administrators. We'll work out a better system soon, but for now, you can work with Audrey to let everyone know we want to create a ruling council and once that council has a representative that can act as mediator."

There were a lot of permission settings to play with, and he didn't want to deal with them much at his moment. He could have had it so all vice-administrator had to have their requests approved by him, but that sounded like a pain. For now he only activated that on the taxation module. No one but him could touch that. That and the upgrading menu.

Those two were critical enough that he didn't want others to have access to just yet.

"We need some buildings," Ethan went on. "And we need to agree on a few things once a council is established. As for the taxation, I'm setting it to 50% for now. While some of the survivors wanted to give away more so we can unlock the communication module faster, we can't afford to be weakened too badly. We don't know what's out there, and we have to be ready. Now, I'm heading out to start working on our budget. The priority is to get a few barracks built. It might not be the most comfortable, but we need roofs more than we need comfort at the moment."

Amanda nodded along, probably looking at the costs of the barracks in the construction modules before her eyes surveyed the space for a moment before they swiveled back to him. She didn't waste time, and Ethan appreciated that. "At 500 fragment per barrack that would house twenty, we'll need… 4500 fragments. It sounds like a lot but there's 168 of us and while not all are combatants, I expect we'll have the sum in a few hours as long as everyone goes out and gets some hunting done. You're heading to one of the rifts, right?"

Ethan nodded, and Amanda gave him a decisive nod. "Then I expect to have the barracks up by the time you get back," she said, then hesitated. "I mean, we'll pay for them, but I'm not sure how the pylon will get it done. I don't know if they'll instantly pop out of thin air or if it would only give us the raw materials and we'd have to figure it out by ourselves… But we'll make do."

"Don't worry about it. Just take care of the getting them paid for, and help them with whatever they ask," he said, nodding toward Gerald and Liz. "We need to have a council running. There's already quite a few people around and we can't hear every one of them individually whenever a decision has to be made. Plus, we might have people join us in the long term, so we better have a system in place."

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Ethan did not mind getting some work front-loaded so he wouldn't have to deal with much later. If he could get the settlement to basically run itself, he could focus on his other priorities.

Rifts. There's two around, and there's a token I still have for a third. And while my own upgrades might take a minute considering the taxation, we need to upgrade the pylon.

With the goal set for the vice-administrators, Ethan stepped away and summoned the obsidian, scaly wings. He spread them out, enjoying the feedback from the breeze hitting the membranes, and with an effortless hop, he took to the air.

The ground dropped under him as Ethan ascended, leaving the worries and stress below him as he headed south toward the first rift. As much as his wings could allow him to travel fast and cover a lot of ground, he didn't think they would be more effective than the communicating between pylons to find the people they were looking for, Luther included.

The mana levels are still low, at least.

The pylon had indicated that tier-2 rift should not be appearing for at least one more month. And considering the rift he faced in the tutorial had tier-2 monsters as mini-bosses, it meant that tier-2 rifts would have tier-3 bosses.

Treetops flitted under him for a few minutes, until he was once more flying over the city.

He'd have to be ready to tackle those by then. Right now, even freshly evolved tier-2 monsters were a bit of a slog to bring down, so tier-3 was probably a big jump in power.

Tier-1 evolution was at level 20. Tier-2 at 70, so what would be tier-3? Level 120? Level 150?

Now that he was considering the levels… even a few weeks might be cutting it short. Leveling had slowed down over the last couple of days, so to make sure he was ready, he had to work hard. He had to level and upgrade his wands as much as possible, evolve a few more spells, and explore the capabilities of the pylon.

A tier-2 pylon will unlock communication and defensive capabilities. What would tier-3 unlock? Could it open up something for trade? A way to buy items and whatnot? Books?

He didn't expect the pylon upgrades to take too long. With so many people contributing, the balance should increase pretty damn fast, and it was a good thing there was no way for any individual to dip into the collective fragments.

That would have been completely broken, he thought. And way too tempting.

Though now that he was thinking of the pylon and its fragments, his thoughts wandered toward taxation and how it might change in the future. For example, warriors might need to keep more of their fragments to upgrade their capabilities, while non-combatants might not need as much.

Or would they?

Ethan paused. He actually had no clue how non-combatants were going to be using their spells and magic in this new world. He did remember that magical items such as the pouch tied to his belt had had to be made by someone, but he hadn't encountered any spells that could help with such endeavors.

Ethan shook his head. This was why he wanted to set-up a council. To figure out these questions and create a more thought-out solution for the long term. For now, he was at least happy the module would allow them customizations. While he did put a blanket 50% on everyone, he did see that it could be capped for certain groups, and altered depending on multiple factors, just like taxes in the real world.

As much as he didn't want to get too much into the nitty-gritty of managing a city, having the power to do so was kind of fun. There was no one to force unfavorable conditions upon them, and they could create something they fully believed and cared for.

A new city.

"And to do that, I got to take care of a few beasties," he said as he finally laid eyes on the rift.

Just like it had been back in the tutorial, a jagged ,blue-purple tear was hovering a couple of feet off the ground, in a parking lot, of all places, and already contesting the local chapter of the over-sized rats were stocky, bipedal rock-like things that looked as if someone had piled a stack of gray, cracked stones in the general shape of a person.

[Rock Elemental (I) - Level 64]

The rats tried to bite and scratch, but they only got dust for their effort.

Still a hundred or so feet off the ground, Ethan began channeling his mana into a fireball, a smile across his lips, then paused, frowning, before letting the fireball wink out.

"Are these things sapient?"