Having saved up enough he expands north and gets . . . a stone path, well to be fair he knew that would be part of it since he had part of the path for a while. He wasn't expecting the entire expansion to be dominated by it though. For a brief moment he is worried that it's going to be another repeat of the library. He soon calms down though since even if it is he feels no compulsion to buy it all as soon as possible. Well, none beyond his general desire to own more territory anyway. He is starting to get bummed out at not having gotten a spawner in a while. All of his spawners right now are located back inside what he is starting to refer to as his starting area, which is everything inside the wall he built himself. He tries to keep everything spread out evenly so they can respond to threats quickly but the more territory he gets the harder that becomes even with the spawners increased production rates.

Speaking of his spawners it has been a while since he looked at their upgrades, and so after waiting half a day to build up mana he takes a look at the spawners. The rat spawner is level 9 and would require at least a day and a Halfs worth of mana to upgrade at the moment. He is curious what it will give him but not curious enough to actually wait that long right now. The praying mantis, wasp and snake spawners are all at level 5 and all have good reasons to upgrade. Mantises seem to be his mage units at the moment and upgrading the spawner might give him another elemental mantis. The wasps on the other hand have always been his front-line units, the ones he sends in first, so upgrading the wasp spawner would be a no brainer. Snakes did great work in that last fight and work well as reinforcements. Given that role they would naturally benefit from being strong enough to challenge whatever the others need reinforcement against. The chicken spawner is level 4 and is currently serving as his last line of defense. Upgrading it would make him more secure. The Gopher spawner is also level 5 and has the potential to spawn some of his largest units. Gophers haven't really been tested in battle yet though aside from casting a few fear spells here and there. He wouldn't want them to be outclassed when they are needed but for now he just doesn't see a need to upgrade the gopher spawner. At least not as much of a need as there is for the others. In the end though he decides to upgrade the spider spawner. The spider spawner is only level 3 and the spiders right now are as intimidating as a wet noodle. Spiders, like the rats, can organize themselves into swarms, it just takes way more of them for it to actually count as a swarm. Also like the rats they make good defenders, or at least he's hoping they will after a few upgrades to the spawner. Throwing a quick upgrade on the spider spawner he watches as the spawner itself stretches and grows before a massive, or at least massive by earth standards, 1-meter big spider crawls out. Not that the other large spider wasn't big but this thing is almost twice the size of that one. Logan can't help but notice a pattern and is starting to wonder if all the upgrades will be size related and if so just how big will they get. He'd love to test that theory so he waits until he can afford another upgrade and upgrades the spider spawner yet again. What comes out this time he thinks is big by anyone's standards being 2 full meters big. "That thing's almost big enough to ride" he says suddenly glad he isn't arachnophobic. Thinking about it some more he decides the next upgrade will be to the chicken spawner just so all his spawners are level 5, except for the rat spawner. After waiting for his mana to build up he purchases the upgrade and gets a . . . well it can barely be called a chicken at this point. It's legs are longer and way more muscular. There are now noticeable claws on its feet as well as on the hands at the end of its wings. Its wings have grown longer and more powerful as well, no longer capable of flight without magical assistance but much more deadly in a fight. The jaw muscles attached to the beak have multiplied giving it much a much stronger bite force as well. He sets them to go downstairs as well to aid the Dino Chickens already there.

With the spawners sorted out he sets his sights on expanding south. While he waits for his mana to build up he takes a look around his territory and is happy with the amount of progress everyone has made. The cooks managed to find a way to incorporate the mushrooms into their food adding some desperately needed variety to their meals. Carver is still working on making stuff for Allyson but will soon be making weapons and armor and whatever else might be needed. Allyson for her part is still trying to find herbs, well more specifically she is looking for either seeds or plants that are in good enough shape to survive being transplanted. She has actually managed to find a few herbs, but they were all of very poor quality and didn't survive being removed from the soil. She isn't dissuaded however and continues to push on. Turning his attention to Maribel he can see she is making great strides even managing to make a set of leather armor. It's extremely crude but functional. At the rate she's going he is certain she'll be pumping out high quality leather armor in just 3 or 4 months. Finally, there is Yangus who has gotten pretty decent at woodworking. He has managed to make a long table running between the two small houses with enough chairs that nobody needs to sit on the ground unless they just want to. Aside from that the mages are making progress being able to use their spells in battle. The life mage has even gotten some practice healing a few minor burns. Speaking of the life mage she has gotten a lot more experience healing cuts as well since the more advanced melee fighters began sparing with actual weapons instead of the blunted weapons they were using. For the next few days he sits back and just passively watches the day to day happenings within his territory. He did notice the human population in his territory tick up a few more times and he has an idea what might have caused it but he doesn't want to say anything in case he's wrong. He does end up telling Cid so that precautions can be taken but orders him not to say anything just yet.

He finally has enough to expand south and gets more stone path. This time though he at least had an idea what to expect thanks to the very wide stone path to his north. If he were back home, he wouldn't think twice about it but given the level of technology he has been able to observe since he woke up here having two such large paths at either end of a row of building seems odd. Of course, it could be common practice to cover all dirt and grass with smoothed stone for all he knows. Then again, they could have been way more advanced at one time. Heck, they could still be more advanced than what he has seen. Once again, he chastises himself for jumping to conclusions.

Wild theory crafting aside he now has a choice to make about which way to expand. It doesn't take him long though as he is wants to claim the wall, he is pretty sure exists east of the church. The problem is that he doesn't really have anything to occupy his mind. His residence have improved a lot over the past few weeks to the point where further progress is slow and tedious. He tries to think of ways to help the residence further, but every solution he can think of requires more rooms than he currently has. Except one, with a thought he begins carving out a large 20 by 30meter area under the library with a 5.5meter ceiling. He incorporates a few wide-open areas with several hilly areas for mages and other ranged units to hide. The hilly areas are also to hide the columns he uses cause he doesn't trust the ceiling to not collapse given the size of the room. He wishes he was able to summon material out of thin air so he could put down a layer of dirt and grass to help soften the edges. Instead, he makes a mental note to dig some up once he gets enough grassy area where doing so won't result in a huge hole in the ground. He spent a while going over the arena from every angle making sure it was symmetrical. He intended for this room to be used to simulate large scale battles using both ranged and melee fighters and he didn't want one side to have an unfair terrain advantage.

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It took just short of two days to carve out, not just because of the sheer size but also because of the detail work that went into it as well as constantly checking for mirror symmetry. He also built a hallway around the outside with little eye slots for people to peek through so they could watch in relative safety. Finally, though he is done and just in time to as he finally has enough mana to expand again. Without even thinking about it he expands east and is greeted by grass, lots and lots of grass. He isn't too disappointed although he certainly wouldn't have objected to a new spawner or even just getting the eastern wall. He quietly wonders how much of the city he has left to claim but doesn't really want to know what's around him. Strategically it makes sense for him to know what he's getting before he expands but that would also take away the fun of expanding. For him expanding is like unwrapping a present, the fun of unwrapping it is gone if you already know what you're getting. That is a large part of why the library nearly drove him mad. He understands how serious the situation is but he also knows from experience how important one's mental health is so he chooses to remain in the dark about what he will get when he expands in order to experience that brief burst of joy at finding something unexpected.

For the next few days he watches as teams of ten or more battle it out in the larger arena. They take turns switching from acting as attackers to being the defenders. It looks like their intent on not being relegated to the sidelines next time the sanctuary is attacked. He has to admit that compared to when the groups first arrived they have become quite formidable. Perhaps helping him defend his territory will be just the confidence boost they need, although he still plans to do everything in his power to ensure they're never in any actual danger. He still doesn't know how many humans are left after all and he can't shake the nagging feeling that there aren't many more outside his sanctuary. He'd like to say he's just being paranoid and that there are lots more but the evidence from what he has seen just doesn't support that.

Now that he has enough, he expands east and this time gets the eastern wall and a little bit of the area behind it. Still no new spawner and although he wasn't really expecting one it's gotten to a point now where each upgrade that goes by without one makes him that much more painfully aware of how much time has passed since he did get a new spawner. Instead of sulking though he uses this as an opportunity. He absorbs the wall between the library and the starting area. This opens it up and allows both residents and his troops to cross freely between the two areas. Not to mention allowing a lot more room for activities. Using the material gained plus what he gained from making the large arena he strengthens the wall around the rest of his territory. This took longer than it needed to because he wasn't really sure what he should do about the gate in front of the library. Sealing it would potentially limit enemy movement but would also limit his own troops movement, well the ones that can't fly or climb walls anyway. In the end he decided to seal it up. He has no spawners over there so the strategic advantage of leaving it open is minimal at best.

Being satisfied with the eastward expansion for now he turned his attention to the other three directions. Without a doubt expanding north or south would net him the most total area. Especially since his territory is a little over 1.5 times as long east-west as it is north-south. The problem is that no matter how far to the north or south he expanded his starting area and thus the stairs leading to his core would technically still be near the edge off his territory. For that reason he decided to spend a little time and expand to the west a bit further. He just hoped he wasn't about to run into another huge building like the library. As he waited for his mana to build up so he could expand he noticed Yangus over by where the mansion once stood. Sending Cid to find out what was up he learned that Yangus intends to rebuild the mansion so that they can use it. Apparently, he has faith that by the time he is done the mansion will no longer be near the edge of my boarder, especially since he says he won't settle for sub-par craftsmanship even from himself. As much as he wants them to keep hiding underground and not use those buildings, he also realizes that living in hiding constantly isn't good for their mental health. That means living on the surface in houses is essential for their overall wellbeing.

After saving up enough mana he expands west and gets a building of some kind. "Exactly what I was afraid of" he whines to himself. "Please don't let this one be as big as the library." Once again he feels the urge to claim the rest of it and he knows he won't be able to stop until the entire building is his. He only has the wall for now which leads him to hoping it won't be that big, but it also means he has no idea what kind of building it is. It will be a few days before he can expand again and get any real information, so until then he tries not to think about what it might be. Even though trying not to think about that building is like trying not to think about someone who is currently breathing in your ear. To distract himself he watches his residents. A group of them are just getting ready to compete in the arena. The 'attackers' have 6 people with spiked clubs and shields 2 people with sword and shield and 2 fire mages. "Makes sense seeing as fire magic is mainly what we've been facing" he smiles to himself realizing it was a good idea to share the details of each battle with Cid. The 'defenders' consisted of 8 people duel wielding swords 'donated' by the orcs, and 2 air mages. The life mages was on standby though incase her healing magic was needed. Logan wasn't sure how the wind magic would fair against fire magic because normally wind amplifies fire. The rules were simple, all the attackers had to do was get past them and touch the back wall. The defenders on the other hand just had to prevent that. As the 'battle' started the fire mages sent two fireballs towards the enemy mages which they deflected towards the side walls using air magic. Then they retaliated by sending a huge wave of wind not at the fire mages but at the melee units. this caused enough of them to get pushed of balance for the defenders to separate them into groups. The fire mages sent a few more fireballs at the air mages who deflected it again albeit just barely this time. Next the air mages send a stream of air to push at the back of their melee unit's knees. This caused them to drop to their knees. Some were taken out, but most were able to use their shields to prevent a 'killing' blow. Those who were eliminated went to sit over by the life mage so she could look them over. This time the fire mage switched gears and attacked the defender melee units but once again the air mages were able to deflect it all be it just barely. At this time a few melee units from each group broke of and went after the respective mages. What amazed Logan was that the swordsmen, despite not having a shield, were able to block the clubs and shield bashes of their opponents. The mages on the other hand with no melee units to support them were quickly eliminated, although one of the melee units attacking the fire mages did receive serious burns. It would probably take him a day or two to recover even with healing magic. The battle ended shortly after that as there was no one between the two attackers that dealt with the air mages and the back wall. Watching this battle does remind him to ask Carver about putting his heat resistance runes on clothing and armor. He also takes a moment to contact Cid and let him know how it went and the obvious hole he saw in the defender's battle plan.