As the Spring rains came to wash the snow away, it completed the first year since the World was altered. While Chris and his fledgling City were slowly making progress on rebuilding, the rest of the world did the same.
Some had a head start, planting their pylon and building exactly where they were returned, while others had to seek out new places to carve out for themselves. The foothills of Virginia, being one such area, had turned into a perilous place for even the strongest on the planet, let alone the average human, causing any returned there to journey far away before they felt comfortable setting down roots.
In places similar, where the mana was thick and the monsters strong, people left in droves. Seeking safety and shelter wherever they could find it. A mass exodus away from certain areas happened all over the globe and in some, it still happened.
Where man once stood at the top all over the globe, some areas inverted that scale and it was undecided if it would ever be flipped back.
Some were able to painstakingly, and with great losses, fight against that hierarchy. Reestablishing 'order' and plant the seeds of civilization, but just as many stayed and died, failing to accomplish what they had hoped.
Where some fought walking horrors of grotesque monstrosity seeking to eat them, others had to fight for the resources just to survive. Water and food weren't freely available and stocking up took more than running to the store like it used to.
Rivers, streams, and watering holes were precious resources that many things needed for survival. While humans were among the many who needed them, they were far from the only ones.
The fight for territory between man and beast was rough for the first few months, but it had settled as the year went on.
The animals that man used to be wary of long ago became an even bigger threat after mana arrived but they were far from the only threats people now faced.
Mother Nature had made sure its dominance was not forgotten. Supercharged storms filled with mana were the smallest on humanity's list of worries.
The Laws of the universe weren't there for human use only. They were Laws for a reason and that was made known to all who witnessed them.
The very phenomena the Laws were birthed from took the biggest death toll in certain areas.
Hurricanes and tornadoes were powered by the very Wind Laws some sought to obtain. Monsoons and Tsunamis rife with Water Laws wreaked havoc along the coasts while Earthquakes rippling with Earth Law leveled everything for miles in some cases.
Wildfires consumed swaths of nature and burned with Fire Laws so hot that the ground melted in some areas. Not to be outdone, Nature Laws blossomed and plants grew like weeds, consuming land in their own way.
The landscape wasn't the only thing that the System changed while it had its way with our Planet. Creatures thought long extinct roamed the Earth again and some would even claim beasts from Myths and Legends did as well.
Only a scarce few had the chance to witness such creatures and most who had were dead, eaten by the very things they thought were only fantasy.
Over ten thousand Civilization Pylons were given out as the tutorial ended but less than half remained standing by the year's end.
The good news, if you could call it that, was the rate at which they fell dropped with every passing day. Another positive outlook was while the total number of Pylons went down, the ones that remained got stronger.
Soon, the falling numbers would stop but it would never be stagnant again. The World was too wide a place for that to happen and the System had only made it wider.
Rise or Fall, stagnation wasn't an option anymore.
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Chris
The time spent doing things right had done us well. Thick granite blocks carved and chiseled into shape stood tall and proud, dominating the landscape. Pride overflowed inside of me as I looked them over.
Months of work had gone into the process and we were nearly ready to cap it off. The blood sweat and tears of over one hundred people went into this project and I couldn't be happier about it.
The beginnings of my castle stood at the edge of the cliff and it would weather any storm thrown at it. It looked slightly odd without any walls or gates to accompany it, but they would come in time.
But even without them, I was confident in what stood before me. I could feel it in my Spirit that it would not fall.
Spirit Anchors were still new ground for most and not many knew how it all worked, but I poured everything I had into the structure, my Spirit included.
My anchor felt fitting to saturate what would be my home.
Every day for months, I drained what little Spiritual energy I had and packed it into the stone used to construct my home.
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I wasn't sure if everyone could feel it, but when I looked at what we had built, it felt like the world would stop spinning before it stopped standing. Maybe that was just me being biased since it was my anchor that I could feel.
As my eyes approached the cliff, the ground turned into a rising slope of manicured stone 10 feet wide that rose at a gentle angle leading upward, meeting up with the rest of the building. After following that ramp to its end, a massive double door made of heavily reinforced wood barred the way in. Metal curved and looped throughout the wood, interwoven throughout both doors and even the wooden bits received a special treatment.
For this part, I had Jonathan pour his Spirit into it instead of mine. His was more fitting for the door and I felt it would do better than mine would.
The Wood was also strengthened with every skill we had at our disposal. Builders with any they had along with every Nature mage inside our city. I had paid handsomely for every person with a Wood law to bathe the door in their power.
The Law empowering it would fade with time, but the treatment increased its strength permanently, if only by a lesser degree. The lingering Law had worked through the grains and righted what was wrong before it faded, altering the wood into a stronger form forever.
After that, Runes of Durability could be seen depicted by the metal reinforcing it. Cleverly carved into the wood and inlaid with precious metal bought from the tutorial.
Done by my own hand along with help from my brother, the door had taken us days of work and study. Studying what enchanting books we had available took longer than the work itself. Looking at it now let me see places that could be improved but I stubbornly moved on from those.
As the work continued, my Runesmithing had gotten better and so had Gabriel's enchanting. As we got better, it made me want to go back and fix all of the small mistakes we could now notice.
It would be a perpetual problem and one I would have to live with. The tiny imperfections didn't warrant redoing the entire door as they would only make it marginally better.
I would wait until a drastic improvement could be made until I went ripping things apart. This entire city would be a never-ending construction project but I would make it the best I could, or I would die trying.
I envisioned it as a living, growing piece of art a not insignificant amount of my time would go into improving. One I was happy to sink hours of work and Spirit into without any remorse.
If the strength and Spirit I poured into it would one day save my family, it would all be worth it.
After forcing my eyes to move on from the door and what tiny imperfections I could see, they were only able to take in one side of all its glory. While the ramp and door were first to be taken in, the rest of the castle wasn't to be outdone.
A small mountain of stone stood before me reaching high into the sky and I knew it was only one wall of four. The wall was hundreds of feet wide and over 50 feet tall, with towers interspaced along its length. The two visible corners stood out above the rest, topped with guard towers thicker than the wall itself. They protruded out from the edge to give sight lines to any attacking the gate.
Slits ran up its length only a few inches wide starting from its base and ran the entire height, and while the tower stood out atop the wall, it wasn't the only one.
Four others were interspaced along the top. Smaller and not as large as what manned the corners, they added to the imposing image facing me.
Two stood on either side of the gate overseeing all who would enter with two more at both midsections. The Engineers and Masons had outdone themselves and I would have to do something nice for them.
Originally, we had no Masons to speak of when the project started. Only gaining our first after a few had chosen to evolve that way when given the option. Builders reaching that threshold who had gone that route were rewarded by me personally.
After seeing me give out rewards to the lucky few, some had chosen to discard their current Profession and start from scratch with the ones I needed.
Our group had a wide range of Professions, but not all we needed we represented. Miners were our biggest bottleneck as not many wanted to mine stone all day.
It took a heavy incentive from me to convince any to make the switch.
Switching Professions was hard on people in both body and spirit. The Profession that was being discarded was essentially ripped away from the person.
All it had given in terms of stat points and skills was scraped from the person to make room for the new one. It set people back by months worth of work in some cases and that said nothing of the pain it caused.
While receiving stat points was a pleasant experience, feeling your body growing stronger, the opposite was not so fun.
It took signed contracts guaranteeing work, dungeon access for their Class, along with a decent amount of coin before any even considered it and even then, not many chose to sign up for the process.
Among the Profession books we had kept and brought with us, Miner was not one of them. Mason was, thankfully, but most of the resource-gathering ones were forgotten.
It was hard to know everything we would need when we didn't have all the information. Abigail blamed herself for not thinking ahead, but I blamed the shoddy information we were given.
It wasn't like we were given a guide on everything we would need and every situation we would experience. We didn't even have a list of all the possible professions, let alone those that would benefit a city.
During our tutorial, no one had felt the need to choose the Lumberjack profession when we could just as easily cut down trees without it. I, as a Blacksmith, had cut down my fair share.
Little did we know the full benefit a resource-gathering Profession could offer. Not only were they faster and more efficient at doing so, but their skills could increase the grade of materials they brought in.
Where a regular person could only harvest the grade of wood available to them, sometimes even worsening it depending on the method of harvest, the dedicated profession could increase it.
When I was trying to build the strongest possible fortifications, any increase in material grade was most welcome, even if I had to pay a premium to make it happen.
Money did become an issue, though, as things progressed. I was not as flush with coin as I made it seem.
I could easily clear all eight floors of both dungeons but that only netted me just over a silver a day. Roughly 50 copper per dungeon wasn't enough to keep everyone happy on our payroll.
100 copper, or a silver if you wished to convert it, paid for nearly 8 hours of the work we had done in a day.
Not only did the construction workers need to be paid, but the people gathering and hauling the material as well. Let alone the Farmers after they started work when Spring finally arrived.
With how far North we were, the planting season came a little later than most but we weren't so far up that it never came. While the Winter seemed like it would never end on some days, the Chill did eventually break for the warm southern air to come through.
Much to my annoyance.
Anyway, while the castle stood alone for now, walls would soon join it and fill out what I had dreamed. Right now it was a very sturdy stone house with guard towers.
A house I was fit to move into now that we were done.
A house that I hoped to be my seat of power for years -no- centuries to come.
It was hard to change my thinking into longer time frames but I was beginning to come to terms with how long I would live.