A week later and things were starting to get back to normal. He no longer felt completely defenseless as he now had a few troops. It still wasn't enough to handle any kind of serious attack but at least he could keep other non-sentient invaders out. The gamble that he could replenish his army faster than the Elves could appeared to be paying off. He had even managed to expand three times in the past week getting him the rest of what he was calling the bath house. The changing areas and reception desk along the north side of the building were off center by exactly three meters which he absolutely despised. He could only guess as to why but the most likely cause he could think of was some architect thought this was a great artistic statement. One day he would fix this obvious blunder he had sworn to himself. He wasn't against art, but symmetry was art this eye sore was just an eye sore.

His residents have also made great strides this past week. Yangus had already finished most of the first floor of that boarding house he was working on. The main limiting factor being getting wood without being seen by any of the other sapient races. The design was simple enough. A four-meter-wide reception, lounge, meeting, and hopefully someday bar area that stretched from the front of the building to the back. The side areas consisted of a one-meter-wide hallway with four 2 meter by 4 meter rooms with a 3 meter by 4 meter room containing stairs to the second floor at the end of the hall on each side. So, 16 rooms and 4 stair rooms in total. Admittedly they were more cramped than what his residence were used to, but they had the added benefit of being on the surface and eventually containing actual beds. He had Cid question Yangus about the four stairs and he was told it was to reduce the chances of someone being stuck on the second floor.

The fire mages had spent the week practicing the spells they had seen the elf mages use. They now had so much more than the basic fireball and fire stream they could use. It would still take a great deal of time for them to actually perfect their new spells but at least they now had them. Air mages unfortunately didn't learn anything directly but were able to incorporate some of what the fire mages learned into their own magic. The life mage didn't really get much chance to practice what she was able to learn by watching the elf healers. She was still able to improve her own understanding of healing magic and was all too happy to share some of that knowledge with her little protégé. She would share it all eventually but didn't want to overwhelm the girl. Lulu and the shadow mage listened to the other mages describe what they saw but they didn't really see a way to incorporate it into the fighting style they had established.

Siobhan and the four amigos had become inseparable except for when Lily was training with the life mage. They often fought 3 on one in the smaller melee arena. Siobhan of course used blunted weapons while the girls continued to use the little wooden weapons. They would soon be graduating to blunted weapons seeing as they were now able to best Siobhan a third of the time. She couldn't wait until the girls were good enough to go two on two but that was still a ways off yet. She figured that once they were able to best her most of the time going 3 on 1 they would be ready for 2 on 2 matches. Thankfully they all had decent clothing now, it was even lined with silk to make it softer on the skin.

It was pretty much business as usual for the rest of his residence. The twice daily 'battles' continued as usual although with much more healing being needed as everyone wanted to prove they were ready for the next attack. The life mage had even begun letting Lily heal the simple wounds when she wasn't with the other girls. She needed real world experience if she was ever going to become a true healer after all. The only real surprise was one of the female warriors was already starting to get a bit of a bulge in her stomach. Not much, in fact he doubted anyone but him had noticed yet but it was there. Logan was torn between not wanting to treat her like an invalid but also wanting to protect the life she now carried. In the end he decided to just have Cid make sure she had the best Chest armor and shield.

Stepping back for a minute he watched everything with a smile, happy that it hadn't all been ended that day when the enemy had gotten so close to making it down the stairs. He worried what would happen next time but he did not let that worry stop him from expanding. It did not stop him from expanding because he knew that the more territory he held the more direct control he had over his units. Already he could establish specific patrol routes instead of just telling them to guard a general area. He used this newfound control to have the really giant spiders patrol along the stone paths on the north and south edges of his territory. He couldn't hide them if he wanted to so he decided to use them as a show of force to deter would be attackers. He also sent a few big spiders and some really big spiders to help with anything the really giant spiders were frankly too large to attack successfully. He did find their names rather comical come to think of it. Big spiders were his second smallest spiders and the so called really big spiders were only slightly larger than that.

Now that he had the entire bath house he decided to keep expanding west until he found the western defensive wall. He was certain that it was only one or two expansions away. He still needed another day before he could expand again but once he reached the western wall he would start expanding both north and south trying to even out his shape. Right now despite how big he was east-west it was still way too easy to get to his starting area considering he had put the gates facing north and south and hadn't expanded much in those directions since then. That was an oversight he was anxious to fix but he dared not get ahead of himself. He was a doer but that also meant completing the task he had assigned himself, that being expand to the west wall in this case. Beside it was always possible that there was no west wall in which case he needed to know so he could build one.

After watching a few 'battles' he finally has enough for the next expansion. What he gets is a row of berry bushes. The bushes have obviously been picked clean and there is a spot on the end where a bush use to be. He guessed that was where the mysterious berry bush had come from all those months ago. This was perfect as he needed to expand the diet of his residence. over the next few days he poured mana into those berry bushes to make them produce more berries at a much faster rate. The cooks of course were excited because it had been a while since they had berries to work with, and these berries were larger and juicier than any berries they'd had before. He had honestly forgotten about berry bushes to be honest. He was so small in the beginning it felt like the rats travelled kilometers to get to these berry bushes. "What else is closer than I imagine it to be?" he asked himself.

As he watched Yangus work while waiting for his own mana to increase he tried to work out what kind of magi he was using. Whatever it was it allowed him to shape the wood exactly as he needs it although it's still not perfect and often takes multiple attempts to get it close enough. Still, Logan believes it's much faster than what could be done without magic. It will likely take months if not years to get it perfect. He's kind of glad magic doesn't completely remove the skill factor. Magic certainly makes a lot of things easier though. It also seems to limit what jobs are available for those without at least some magical ability. The basic framework is done as is the outside walls at least on the ground floor. He is currently working on designs for the second floor. wanting to get them finalized before dividing the first and second floors with a ceiling/floor. The main problem seems to be that even with magic there is a limit to how much weight can be supported. Either that or Yangus has reached some kind of limit with his woodworking skill and will need a lot more practice.

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Either way since progress seems to have stalled there for now, he turns his attention to Lulu and the shadow mage. Their speed and accuracy with magic has improved a lot as has the complexity of the weapons they can create. Some of the weapons he has at least heard of but there are many more he's never seen. It appears to be their focus on wielding magic in what is essentially melee combat that has resulted in them being able to spam spells so quickly. Watching them he gets an idea. he wants to make them the ultimate tag team but in order to do that they need to learn to fight as a team instead of as two individuals. With that in mind he calls Cid to talk to them about organizing a few matches between them and some melee warriors. They agree wanting to test their skills against actual warriors. The first fight is as he feared, they are great individually but as a team they suck. That's ok though their teamwork, specifically with each other is precisely what he wants to improve. Over the next few days, they slowly learn to at least not counter each other's spells all the time, this is going to take a while. They are making progress though and this gives him ideas for the future.

For right now however he has some more expanding to do. This time he doesn't get anything. He should have known that's what he'd get but the berry bushes had filled him with hope. Somehow, he almost missed that he still didn't have the wall either. If he still didn't have it after the next expansion, he decided he would just build one and be done with it. He needed to start expanding north and south pretty soon after all. Otherwise, it would be extremely expensive to do so. Not that it would be cheap as it is, being almost two and a half times more expensive than expanding east or west just do to how much actual area he would get with each expansion.

Not really having anything else to do at the moment he goes back to watching Yangus some more. He notices that construction of the second floor has started. It seems like Yangus has found a way to resolve whatever issue he was having. The second floor is almost identical to the first except for there being no open area in the middle area. That and the four stairs all go down instead of up. It seems he got around the issue of weight by strategically placing a few load bearing logs here and there. Magically enhanced of course. After a while he looks in on the latest 'battle' and sadly although their skills are staying sharp, they don't seem to be improving. That could be because their 'opponents' are always improving at the same rate they are, so it appears that they aren't improving. He doesn't really have a good way to test that theory though. As such he decided the next time he was attacked by scouts or a patrol he would let the human's fight. He didn't want to have to constantly watch their backs in a large-scale battle, but a small attack would be perfect to judge how good they had become while minimizing the actual danger. He recalled it taking more than one of them to take out one orc who was already half dead, but maybe comparing them to what a few of them were capable of back then was unfair. After all they have put in a lot of time training since then.

He also spends some time watch Lulu and the shadow mage. He really wishes he knew her name, but she is among a handful of others who never seem to ever really speak. Then there are others like the life mage who simply refuse to give their names for some unknown reason. Despite this they are getting a little better with their teamwork, by which he means they get in each other's way a lot less now.

Letting his perception expand outward for the first time in a while he realizes that he has a lot of relatively wide-open fields and will have a lot more once he removes the wall between the bath house and the starting area. In fact, he figures it could be enough to start holding training sessions, or mock battles, on the surface. This will be good for them for a few reasons. First there will be far more room to move about. second unlike with the arena downstairs they will need to be extra careful about what is in the path of their magic attacks. This includes what is potentially behind their target. Something that they haven't really had to consider at this point as it's always just 'enemy' or stone wall. Aside from that he also notices that he is basically a giant strip of land with what on earth would be a road along both his north and south ends. Using this new information, he can help but try and work out the layout of the town. Even though that's like trying to work out what an elephant looks like based on part of a leg.

Eventually he does manage to save up enough for an expansion and this time he does get the wall. From the looks of it he was close to getting it already as he also gets, much to his surprise, part of yet another stone path. This one going north south instead of east west. Now he can start spreading north and south giving his residence much more breathing room in the middle where they don't have to constantly be worried about getting attacked. They will still need to take cover depending on how severe the attack is, but they will have time to do so without needing to constant be on alert while on the surface. This can only have a positive impact on morale. His hope being that this will allow them to develop more as a community and allow them to have personalities beyond just survival and combat. He spends some time absorbing the wall between the starting area and the bath house and strengthens the western wall as well as the wall to the north and south that was outside of his territory last time he reinforced the wall. When that is done, he also talks to Cid about having mock battles up on the surface now that there is enough room.

The problem is that after doing the math he finds that it will now take over four and a half days to save up enough mana for each expansion. That is if he doesn't spend it on anything else. He really hopes he can find something to occupy his time soon because he knows the expansions aren't going to get any cheaper. Already expanding down is ludicrously expensive. Not quit as expensive as buying a new spawner but it's getting there.

Once again finding himself with nothing to do he checks in on his residents. For a change of pace, he decides to check in on the cooks. It seems they made a primitive type of flour out of the wheat and are somehow using that to make breads of various sizes. This gives him a lot of ideas for new foods, at least new here, but he needs a few other ingredients first. The younger apprentice seems to be experimenting with new ways to combine what they have which has led to some very interesting discoveries like a type of primitive berry rum. He isn't sure how you get berry rum from just berries and wheat, but he suspects that a liberal application of magic was involved. Even though he's never actually seen any of them use magic beyond runes which seem to be different that regular magic. Before he leaves, he has Cid ask the pregnant warrior to come be the apprentices official taste tester. She can use the extra calories after all and the apprentice can use the practice. Judging by the new life signs that popped up a while ago she may not be the only taste tester either. While he could go and just look, he prefers to wait until they at least start showing to find out who the other soon to be moms are. This is also why he has been rushing the expansions lately. Well, one of many reasons but still it is A reason. Kids need room to grow and play without needing to contribute. The four amigos had their childhood stolen already at such a young age and as much as he wants to help, he's not a councilor. He does however intend to make sure they are the last ones to have their childhood taken from them.