Nick walked over to the center of the base again while the others stood around the area waiting. He used the heart of the gym to purchase and place the infirmary on the holographic map of the base. The moment he confirmed the placement, the concrete ground beneath the pile of monster corpses and broken or damaged items began to glow. A loud beep echoed, and the materials vanished, leaving the area clear. A wireframe outline of the infirmary appeared next, its intricate details flickering into view like a digital blueprint.
Piece by piece, the building materialized before the onlookers. The floor appeared first, followed by the sleek framing, glowing magical conduits, and streamlined medical stations. Plumbing and wiring wove themselves into place, and sterile white walls with magical glyphs designed for enhanced healing emerged layer by layer. Every second added another precise detail until, at last, the one-story structure stood complete, a glowing red cross above the entrance and the guild’s logo, the ultramarine blue and white emblem of a flat bench with weights already racked for someone to do a bench press, stamped proudly beside it.
Just outside the infirmary were the broken-down materials. To one side, a gleaming mountain of essence fragments sparkled like gemstones. The fragments pulsed faintly. Some were no larger than a penny while others were the size of a thumb.
Beside the essence pile, neatly stacked bones—some polished and smooth, others jagged and cracked—rose in various shapes and sizes from the delicate spines of the sciuri to the massive femurs of the achlis. Hides and furs created another heap, their textures varying from silky-soft pelts to coarse, leathery hides. In another heap was a pile of fresh meat.
The monster flesh was arranged in slabs, chunks, and fillets, each piece cleanly deboned and glistening with a faint sheen. The cuts varied widely, reflecting the diversity of creatures they had been harvested from. Some pieces were dense and marbled with dark streaks of fat, hinting at a rich, hearty flavor, while others were lean and pale, almost translucent, suggesting a lighter, more delicate texture.
The pile of broken equipment—shattered swords, splintered shields, dented armor, and snapped bows—had been reduced to their raw components. Gleaming ingots of metal that looked like they had no impurities at all were stacked neatly in rows. Beside the ingots, sheets of leather lay stacked like the pages of an enormous book.
“This is great! We can start using this right away,” Topaz commented as she turned to Nick.
“Wait, before anyone goes in, let’s check a few things. We have a lot more essence fragments now than we did before, and we have a lot more than ten people injured,” Nick said as he opened up the menu and checked the building. Sure enough there were a few options, many of which looked quite tempting, and he now had 1,247 essence shards to spend.
Expanded Patient Capacity
Description: Increases the infirmary's ability to treat more patients at once.
Effect: +10 patient capacity (total 20).
Cost: 50 essence fragments.
Effect: +10 patient capacity (total 30).
Cost: 75 essence fragments.
Effect: +10 patient capacity (total 40).
Cost: 100 essence fragments.
Enhanced Recovery Aura
Description: Improves the natural healing enhancement provided by the infirmary.
Effect: Increases natural recovery rate from 50% to 100%.
Cost: 75 essence fragments.
Advanced Healing Boost
Description: Strengthens the effectiveness of healing magic and medicine.
Effect: Increases healing and recovery magic effectiveness from 30% to 60%.
Cost: 60 essence fragments.
Resuscitation Ward
Description: A specialized ward outfitted with high-grade magical equipment that will stabilize the condition of near-death patients.
Effect: Keeps up to 3 patients in stable condition regardless of how injured they are.
Cost: 100 essence fragments.
Dimensional Medicine Chest
Description: A storage chest that will generate medical supplies over time.
Effect: Generates 1 healing potion, capable of restoring 50% of a person’s health, every 10 hours.
Cost: 75 essence fragments.
All of them were great, but the one that Nick was most interested in was the patient capacity option. Room for only ten people just wasn’t enough, and he was certain of that as he clicked the button and upgraded the infirmary’s number of beds from ten to twenty for only fifty essences.
“Whoa there, you sure that’s not too hasty? I know we have a lot of essences… but…” Allan asked, looking a little uncomfortable with how quickly the decisions on how to spend the points were being made.
“Yeah, I’m sure. What we need to do—and it’s going to be an absolute must going forward—is pick a number and focus all of the base’s upgrades around getting that many people ready for rotation,” Nick explained. “We’ll have them rotate in eight hour shifts: work out for eight hours in the gym with fifteen minutes in the sauna to maximize the effect, grab a meal, follow that up with eight more hours working out, and then recover on a bed in the infirmary. Nothing says you can’t sleep there and heal faster from workouts. If we run three groups in rotation like that and get them the right nutrition, we can really start preparing for the dragons’ arrival. We can make sure we won’t be caught off guard. Every base purchase and upgrade needs to go toward improving those three groups, and we want as many people in them as possible. We’ll figure out capacity with upgrades as we go along. With the rate we keep getting attacked and with how many monsters there are out there, we might not have enough essence fragments to get everything we really want right now, but we won’t be short on them forever.”
Everyone looked like they agreed with the idea immediately—everyone except Allen, who looked absolutely devastated.
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“Allen, are you really not happy with this plan, bro? You know, as Nick’s best friend, you could easily get on one of the teams if you wanted to volunteer,” Reggie remarked as he saw the tech boy’s panicked expression.
“But . . . what about building a drone-making tech facility for ViVi . . . You know we don’t have to get stronger if we can build a robot army,” Allen grumbled, looking completely dejected. “Why do we need to fight the dragons when we can have an unlimited number of robots do it for us?! Those drones are already crazy powerful, and there’s only four of them at the lowest level. Imagine if we got them to the top level and had hundreds of them . . .”
“He’s sort of got a point,” Topaz said.
“Yeah, he does. I don’t even think his answer is necessarily wrong, but I’d rather have fate in my hands than pray that the upgrades to the robots reach a high enough level to win. We know we can kill a dragon if we become strong enough . . .” Nick replied, the memory of his grandfather’s mana-petrified corpse flashing in his mind for a moment. “We know we can win that way.”
“Then I want my crew on one of the teams,” Lassandra, the leader of the Crimson Crusaders, insisted. She pushed her way to the head of the crowd that had gathered to watch the infirmary construction, speaking loud enough that no one would be unable to understand her intent. “We’ve recognized our mistakes and more than paid our debt by fighting that bear with you side by side, nearly dying to carry out your orders, and we’re the best hope you have of killing a dragon if they attack tomorrow.”
“Don’t leave us out either,” said Captain Eizo, head of the Devil’s Cards. “We’ve fought and bled for you. We want our spot in whatever elite group you’re making.”
“You should run four groups, and keep the timing to a tight six hours. We need defense, and your current schedule doesn’t have any room for people to gain levels and combat experience on the defensive front,” Jason, who was leaning on Captain Pfeifer as he’d clearly exhausted his magic completely, added as he butted into the conversation.
Even though it was just the three mercenary leaders speaking, Nick could see from the group crowd that everyone felt the same way: no one wanted to be left behind.
“I’ll join your guild if I have to, but give me a spot in whatever mad group you’re forming,” one of the mercenaries Nick didn’t even recognize said.
“Hold on, hold on, wait a minute.” Kaylee, who had handled the admin for the base and had been the one in charge during Nick’s absence, raised her hands up in protest as she tried to calm everyone down. “Before everyone gets going, I think we need to know how many people actually want to be doing twenty-four-hour training without going home, without taking breaks, just focusing on training, killing, resting, and repeating. You need to realize what this will mean if you get selected. You might not see your family, your loved ones, or your friends back home for weeks, maybe even months! This will be like a military boot camp: you’ll barely have time to write a letter to your family once a day with the training schedule. Trust me, I’ve seen how hard Nick works people.”
Thank you, Kaylee. Nick breathed a sigh of relief as he saw that Kaylee’s words had scared a lot of them. Out of the 327 people in the base, who had all been staring at Nick and vying for a spot a moment ago, only about half remained.
“One fifty-two . . . Well, at least it’s a number divisible by four . . .” Nick thought aloud as he counted the remaining iron-faced, ready-to-fight people staring at him with determined gazes. With his own inner circle of eight people, that was an even four groups of forty, which was incredibly convenient, but it meant he’d have to upgrade every facility to accommodate that many people.
“Okay,” Nick said, clenching his jaw as he prepared “Let’s do that then. We’ll run four groups, forty people in each. We can eat, sleep, train, and fight together until we reach the point at which we can defeat any and every obstacle before us.”
With the decision about their training plans in place, Nick worked through the base interface upgrading the capacity of the infirmary to 40 for a total cost of 225 essence shards. He pushed the capacity of the Gym to 80 so that a group of 40 could use the physical and magical training sections each and the Souleforge Sauna to 40 people, costing him another 1000 shards and leaving him with 22.
Upon finalizing the selection of each upgrade, buildings glowed with energy and expanded outward, forcing those standing too close to the existing structures to too close to the existing structures to scramble out of the way. The Soulforge Sauna and Infirmary took less time than their original construction, but when the buildings stopped glowing, each had nearly doubled in length and width.
“Great, the gym’s ready to go now for workouts,” Elizabeth said excitedly, medicine ball in hand.
“What about a short break first?” Oliver, one of the Daedalus Guild’s main mace wielders asked. “If I’m going to spend a long time stuck in rotation with you all, I kind of want a chance to go back home and eat disgusting cheese-stuffed burritos one last time before you guys put me on some super-healthy training diet.”
“Yeah, what burrito boy said,” Lorenzo, the head of the former Abyssal Knights, added. “I also need to take the girl out on a nice date if I’m going to hope to have her be there when I’m back.”
“Nnn,” Stacy nodded. “Burritos and dates.”
Nick frowned. He didn’t like the idea of losing even a single day, but he could see the group was resolute about this. He was just about to argue against that much time off, to say they could take the break in a week or two, when he saw Mr. Walters shaking his head as if he knew what Nick was going to say before the words even left his mouth.
“Nick, even you need to go back home and deal with things,” Mr. Walters told him. “You’ve put off your grandfather’s funeral for too long. A strong house requires a good foundation, and good muscles require healthy bones. You need to resolve your home situation as well. Then we can begin our prayers at the church of steel and sweat with an empty mind and a clear head head.”
Fine. Nick hated having to relent, but they were all right. There was a lot to deal with before he could devote himself to training nonstop. “Okay, then whoever stepped forward, go organize with Kaylee. We’ll take our day off in shifts too. As for those who aren’t going to be part of the hell group, feel free to keep working here. We’ll pay the same. This base needs you now more than ever.”
“You don’t have to give that speech,” Father Pietro said. “I just can’t spend all my time here. I got a kid at home, and I can’t let her grow up without me seeing it. It’s half the reason I entered the rift instead of just staying in the church: to fight to protect her.”
Nick nodded. “I know. I know I’ve kept you all for too long, and you want to get back to your duties, but I just wanted to say at least once, before we break for the day and organize the groups, that you all are the reason that city on the other side of the rift is still standing. You’re the reason our world still has hope, and no matter what happens, I will do everything in my power to make sure you receive the honor, praise, and compensation you deserve. The world will never know the extent to which it owes you, but at the very least, everyone here will.” Nick paused and then lowered his head, giving a deep bow to the group of people that had kept the rift and its portal safe in his absence and the people who had come to his rescue when he broke the siege against the Black Witch. “Thank you.”
“Hey, don’t try to use some emotional speech to get out of paying us,” Eizo, the merc, said jokingly, but it was clear from his tone that he just didn’t know how to react to Nick’s sincerity.
The others just stood there quietly, awkwardly, as a moment of silence hung in the air until Nick straightened his back up and looked at them again. “All right. Time is EXP. Let’s get moving. Remember to dump all the admin on Kaylee so she doesn’t get any sleep as you guys break into groups and take your first rest days.
“You didn’t have to put it like that,” Kaylee laughed. “Actually, just for that, Nick, your group is on leave first. You go through that rift and settle your things before the others!”
“You’re telling your boss what to do?” Reggie smirked.
“Dang straight!” Kaylee said smugly. “And if he knows what’s good for him, he’ll do it, or every meal I organize for him with the logistics crew going forward won’t have a single ounce of cheese.”
“It’s true what they say: the logistics people run the world,” Seo-ah commented with a laugh. “Alright, sign me up for that day off too, Kaylee. I’ll pay you back with a cupcake, extra frosting and sprinkles on top on my return.”
“Seo-ah, you’re already in Nick’s group, which I said had the day of first, but I’m going to want that cupcake now,” Kaylee said with an ear-to-ear grin as she began putting together a schedule on her smartphone. Her class skills allowed her to work faster with one hand than Nick could with two, even after spending years in front of a computer, using a keyboard. Just as Nick, having understood he wasn’t getting out of his day off, began walking to the rift, Kaylee called out one last thing: “Oh, just to make things easier on you, I sent a text to Rosemary to pick you up at the rift. That way you guys can go together to the funeral. They moved your grandfather’s corpse, and they’re already preparing to start the event. She, Lady Isolde, Roland and Seraphina will be joining us on this side of the rift again after you return. They’d have already been here, but they were stuck with your family politics. Apparently, despite the will, it’s an all out war for managing rights to your grandfather’s company.”