It was a week till Cliff was allowed to leave Reins home.

Entering the city, it left him breathless, there were hundreds of people milling around and everywhere was busy, craftsmen plying their trade, merchants selling on the streets, the pounding of metal echoing in the air. Cliff even saw a crane hoisting people and ores up and down the Mine pit. This sight almost gave him tears. Only a few years ago he was only a student for business but now he had a large city under the mountain to call his own! The sight was simply beautiful.

It was at this time that he finally had a chance to look at this class level and noticed that even with the slaughtering of the Seirei he only got to level 28. Not wanting to stay in one class too long, he offered to accompany the next merchant caravan to act as a guard.

Thankfully there were 10 carts being hauled up north to the Sourou city.

The journey there was slow taking 15 days due to the lack of road, but when they got to the city, they were shocked at how primitive the place was. The army that aided them with the Sourou was well armed and trained but the city that they were looking at was filled with hovels and Sourou in near rags.

Yes, it was shocking but it was all the better for them! Tools and clothing received a 20% increase while the ph’oll staid at 10 coppers a bar. Yes, on earth Cliff would get yelled at for price gouging, but who cares they weren’t on earth and it wasn’t like he was price gouging essentials like food, only tools which were important yes but the Sourou wouldn’t even care.

After some detective work it was discovered that the reason why the city looked so poor compared to its army was that the army was already armed from a battle before the merge so everything came with them. But during the early days many of the Sourou wee hesitant to plan for the future only hunting and gathering, so currently many were still lacking food and proper shelter. Which the mountain Merchants were more than glad to rectify.

Proper clothing and extra fabric were greatly enjoyed, Fur was not needed but they used their own furs to trade for tools, the Sourou traded bows and Salt gathered from tree roots. An old lady who was a scribe even had a few books of Sourou culture that she scribed and traded for lots of Ph’oll and more paper.

By Jove was selling to people fun, there were so many different kinds of them all with different back stories. Thankfully everything went so well that the Mountain caravan was welcomed to come back for more trade.

The caravan burdened with more trade goods then went on to the Gni and Ploot city. Here the city was more held together but there was such a large population that everything quickly sold from the carts which was paid for in gold and silvers instead of traded goods.

During his travels down the markets of the Gni city, Cliff found a delicate beautiful flower brooch. It resembled a western red lily and the coppon was so thin that it felt like a petal. Talking to the vendor he had it wrapped up.

Before heading back to the Mountain, he first talked to the elder council of the city who were in charge of running operations. After some hot air blowing it was agreed that the mountain could build and tax a road as long as their city got 10% of the road tax. Cliff found it anger inducing that the greedy bastards wanted a share of the profit but refused to invest neither resources or manpower to build the road.

--

Travelling back home with wagons filled with jewellery and other fine metal works, Cliff was eagerly met by Rein, who was prancing around like a young foal.

“Dear! I have great news! I am pregnant! I hope it’s a girl!”

Cliff froze for a good minute at the suddenness of the news and it was not till he noticed Rein getting nervous that he mustered words together “that is wonderful, I can’t wait to raise a child with you Rein! I don’t care if they are boy or girl just that they are strong. I would not mind if they became a smith though.”

“You metal pounding dufus! My child will be a scholar! Not someone covered in grime all day!” joked Rein

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Hearing this Cliff approached her and wiped his grimy hand on her cheek and spoke “look! Now you are the grandest tiger in the Jungle!”

Rein was not sure if she should laugh or get angry for being dirtied but she settled with giving him a tight hug.

It was then that he gave her a wrapped gift. Rein then opened and squealed “yes I will marry you!” before she ran off to tell her friends.

Cliff was confused until an Anan leant over and whispered that Anans gifted flowers when proposing marriage. Cliff found it hilarious how he unwittingly just got engaged, but he could not be too upset since Rein was a nice girl and he was excited to raise a family with her.

Later that night Cliff and many of the other men gathered in the pub. That night he drank three barrels of ale and paid not a single copper, everyone else paid for him and gave well wishes for the future heir of the mountains. It surprised Cliff at this comment but he should have expected since he was practically the king of this mountain.

--

Over the next 2 months Cliff travelled with merchants and trained in the arena slowly but surely increasing his levels

It was on one such day that they found themselves accosted by a large and well armed group of humans.

“well, well, well, look what we have here boys! A real live traitor to humanity! Now traitor how about you give us your goods and we might let you go!” shouted the leader

Cliff bared his teeth in anger at the statements “you are a right piece of work you unwashed cunt! I can associate with anyone I want, so sheathe your weapons and leave or I will make minced meat out you lot!”

The bandits laughed and an archer loosed an arrow. Blocking the arrow with earth, Cliff then sent a hailstorm of stones before charging. It was barely minutes before the bandits were routed, the leader dead and many of them fleeing for their lives.

Arriving at the Sourou city he talked with the lord, who said that this was a growing occurrence and they have sent scouts out to find where they were coming from. Leaving it at that Cliff then went to the sourou gladiator pit where many soldiers trained. Here he fought and did not find a single challenge, it was like a mountain vs a hill in comparison his strength, endurance and constitution were just too much!

1 more month passed

After completing his Warsmith class, Cliff chose a class called Metal saint.

This class allowed him to now manipulate earth, stone, metal and even crystals with his mana. This class also increased all smithing skills up to Saint rank and now he could speak with the metals and see exactly what they want to be, so each piece of work made by him was now excellent to legendary quality. Along with this the class unlocked all Smithing class skills such as jewellery making,

8 months continued on as He polished his skills making works of art to be sold or stored in the vault.

Just last week his now wife Rein gave birth, so currently he was making a crib for the baby boy who was named Donald. Who knew babies would be so cute with goat hooves.

Also, during this time Fost has returned to the caravan along with his family. This time around he began travelling between the 10 southern cities and 2 northern cities.

To aid with travel, Marin along with many other Masons and apprentices began the creation of roads. They first started the clearing of trees and digging trenches towards the closest cities of the Gni and Sourou, the roads were similar to roman roads but with the aid of mana the roads were easier to build and stronger. It took 40 days to build the road to Sourou and branching off near that city took another 20 days to build the Gni road. Having completed this Rygn the mountain Gni had armed tax collectors at certain points on the road, this was to make sure that people paid for using the road but also to deter bandits from using it too.

It was when Marin and his team aimed to go south that the problems occurred, since it was 1 month to Lochaide alone it would be difficult to shuttle stone from the mountain all of that length. Phynn though had a solution to this, there would be various small outposts that the mountain would build and claim the land around, which hopefully a few of those outposts would become mines and quarries along with Farms handled by Ram and his people.

After 3 months they had 4 such outposts built which were close to the main road but would have to have a branching road built to aid with movement. One by product of these outposts was that bandits and thieves began popping up like flies but also many people came seeking to build homes on those outposts. Pleased with the outcome Cliff assigned a few mayors who would then report to him who was the King of the Mountain.

But thanks to the work of Maij and Rein many people travelled to and from the Mountain to attend the Academy or look at the library. Rein now had 13 dedicated scribes who wrote down books of history or fiction from each world. But of course, with all the people wanting to record books from their world the poor scribes were constantly overworked.

The influx of people not only caused a headache for Rein and her team but also for cliff since now he had to create laws and a police force. Though he did mix the police with the guards who ended up patrolling the streets and disappointingly made frequent arrests.

Improvement of the mine also came daily. Different levels were made to extend the city, ore was dragged up by the ton which was turned into various ingots to be forged by the various smiths. It was today in fact that citizens of Krampus and Lochaide arrived to form apprenticeships with various crafts in the mountain. this was promoted by Fost hoping a defence or trade alliance could be formed.