Julius stood before what he could only describe as a wooden hut.

Before he could take a moment to understand what was happening.

A voice spoke into his head.

[Welcome to the Endless World.]

[Congratulations on becoming one of the billion Lords. The building before you is your greatest power. The Lord's Abode. Building and developing it is your primary goal.]

[Rise to become an Empire Level Power.]

[Your seven-day protection period begins now.]

"What in the world is happening?"

It took Julius some time to take stock of his surroundings. The sky was clear and the bright sunlight revealed that he was surrounded by a lush forest.

Left with nothing else and trying to distract himself from panic, he made his way into the hut. It left a lot to be desired.

The hut was small. With only a hard wooden bed, a wooden desk and a stool as furniture.

The small wooden stool creaked dangerously as he took a seat at the desk. It was then that an ephemeral screen and keyboard appeared in front of him.

There were several options on the screen. He was thankful that there was something familiar in the hut.

[Territory]

[Forum]

[Trading Hall]

The sparse options on the screen didn't fill him with confidence. Without much choice, he first chose to see his territory.

[Lord's Hovel: Lv 1/5]

[Lord: Julius]

[Population: 1]

[Resources]

[To Upgrade: Stone X 100, Wood X 100]

[Click here to claim your daily 2 Tier 0 recruitment orders]

There were several interesting things on his territory page. He first decided to click on himself to see what the ghostly computer had to say.

[Lord: Julius]

[Talent: Scout (Silver)]

[Power: Tier 0 - 1 Star]

[Reputation: Unknown]

[Title: None]

It was his talent that interested him the most. Unfortunately, it didn't grant him any more information.

His resource page was also empty

He was quick to claim his daily orders, which removed the option from the screen. With nothing else to look at, he moved back to the home page.

Which now had an extra option at the bottom.

[Recruit]

He decided to look at the other options first. As with a seven-day protection period. He was less worried about wasting time and more worried about making the wrong decision.

Clicking into the Forum revealed several more options.

[World Forum]

[Kingdom Forum]

[Local Forum]

That was more than a little interesting. Clicking into the World Forum, he was surprised to see it empty. While it had only been a few minutes since he had arrived in the Endless World. With one billion people, he was sure that there were many people faster.

It was only when he tried to type that he realised why.

[You must be a Titled Lord to post in the World Forum.]

A similar message appeared in the Kingdom Forum.

It was only in the local Forum that he could release a message into the world.

The local Forum was similarly empty, but he had no problem sending out a greeting into the Forum. He knew that alliances between the lords would be a large issue in the future. So making a good first impression was important.

Leaving that he chose the second to last option.

The [Trading Hall] was vibrant in comparison to the others. There were already hundreds of items in the store. Most being simple wood or stone. But people had been quick to begin trying to make money.

With no resources to his name, he couldn't even begin to sell or buy anything.

Which brought him to the final option.

[Recruit]

He wanted to learn a little more information before doing so. But with nobody speaking in the Forums, he was left with no choice.

He was a little surprised when clicking recruit brought him to another page. This one with a hundred faces staring back at him. They were of all ages and backgrounds.

[Scout: 15] [Recruit]

Those were the two options that appeared when he hovered over the people on the screen. It seemed that he now knew what his talent could do. He clicked on the first person. An older man who looked like he had seen better days.

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[Trait: None,

Power: Tier 0 - 4 Star,

Potential; Tier 0 - 6 Star,

Talent: Farming]

The number for scouting went down in turn proving him correct. It seemed that he would only be able to scout fifteen people of the hundred in front of him.

That made him focus. Potential was all well and good, but it wouldn't do him much good currently. While he would have seven days of protection. He wanted to upgrade his living accommodation as quickly as possible. Thus he decided to scout the older people, who seemed to have a bit more experience.

He finally decided on two older-looking men who had the power of Eight Star and Seven Star respectively.

Neither of them had traits or talents outside of farming. They also only had Tier 1 - 3-star potential. But he thought they would be best to begin with.

Clicking Recruit for both, he soon heard some noise from outside the hut. Leaving the stool, the ephemeral computer disappeared.

Outside he saw two familiar men emerge from the forest. They both bowed slightly when they arrived in front of him.

"Greetings my Lord. My name is Jack."

"My name is Ben. It is a pleasure to meet you, my lord."

Julius nodded in return.

"Welcome to my humble land. I hope together we can build it into something great."

He was having more fun pretending to be a lord than he had been expecting.

"For now I need both of you to begin picking up the nearby resources."

While Julius wasn't sure what would and wouldn't be worthwhile. The two farmers would have no such issues. He could only hope that they would be able to find food of some kind. With the two of them working, he began to look around the hut. On the far side of the hut. There was a wooden workbench. That also looked like it had seen better days.

An ephemeral tablet appeared in front of the workbench when he stood in front of it. With several basic tool recipes listed on it. It seemed all he would need was their resources to begin crafting them.

With only five recipes there wasn't much to look at. But he endeavoured to get a few made soon.

With both farmers working away. There was little else for him to do but check the limits of his territory.

That proved a little difficult as there was no clear sign to see what was his territory and what wasn't. After walking out of the clearing. He decided that it would be better for someone else to risk themselves finding it out.

Returning to the familiar screen he was a little surprised to discover a new option.

[Territory Management]

Clicking on it, he was surprised to discover an overhead view of his land. His little hut was in the centre square, with squares stretching out in all directions. There were 25 squares in any direction. Showing him exactly how much space he had control over.

When he clicked on a nearby square, another menu popped up. This time of buildings he could build.

Even with both farmer's diligent work, he still had less than twenty pieces of wood and stone. Meaning he was still far from building the cheapest building. The hovel could hold up to ten people and only cost thirty wood.

After that was the wooden house at sixty wood. Then finally the most expensive building. The Barracks. Costing three hundred wood and five hundred stone. Not something he would be building any time soon.

With the goal of building a hovel in mind, he once again looked at the trading hall.

It seemed that food had become the most sought-after item. With even a unit of food. Which seemed to be about a kilogram. Going for ten wood at the cheapest.

That did remind him that he would have to find food of his own as well. While he was sure that there was stuff to forage in the surrounding area. He still had no idea if there was any danger.

He would have to ask the farmers later what they thought. He could afford food for the short term without any issues.

He would have to try and summon someone who could hunt tomorrow. For now, he bought one unit of Tier 0 Boar meat. Hoping that would be enough for the day.

He took another look at the forums to see if there had been any changes. His post remained the only one in the Local Forum and the Kingdom Forum remained empty.

The World Forum on the other hand was lighting up with people talking. It seemed it hadn't taken some long at all to become a titled lord.

[Knight Lord: It was all thanks to my Diamond Talent that I became a lord. I doubt there is anyone as strong as me in the world.]

[Ancient Lord: My legendary talent tells me that you are lying.]

[Golden Lady: You aren't the only one with a Legendary talent.]

It seemed that having a high talent was the key difference to becoming a titled lord quickly. They seemed more content with comparing themselves with one another than doing anything else.

It looked like his Silver talent wasn't worth much at all compared to the wider world.

There was no lack of titled lords already. A message appeared every few moments in the world forum.

They did begin to speak about other things apart from their talent. Making it a lot more valuable.

It seemed that not everyone had as pleasant a start as Julius. Some were in a barren desert. While others were in tundra's.

Julius heard a knock on the door after about thirty minutes of scrolling.

"My Lord, we have collected all of the nearby items. If you permit us to build some tools we can continue to collect resources."

Taking a quick look at his territory page, he was pleased to see that they had gathered thirty wood and ten stone.

"Very good, I will create some tools now. For now please cook this meat."

After handing Farmer Jack the Boar meat he had bought. He walked around to the back of his hut.

He decided to build an axe first to see how the crafting worked.

The Farmers had made it clear that they couldn't use the workbench.

Citing lack of skill.

That didn't seem to be the same for him as a Lord. A few moments after selecting a basic wooden axe. One appeared on the workbench.

[Common Wooden Axe]

[Durability: 20/20]

There wasn't much else to the axe it seemed. But Ben was more than happy to pick it up and head towards the forest. Ready to begin logging.

With that success. And eight more stones left. Julius began crafting all the basic items.

[Common wooden Pickaxe]

[Common wooden Spear]

[Common Wooden Shield]

[Common Wooden Hoe]

Julius was feeling a lot more secure with those items in his possession. A weapon of any kind was welcome.

He wasn't sure how much damage he could do with the wooden spear. But having it in his hands made him feel a lot more confident.

In the time it had taken him to craft the items, Ben had already felled two trees at the edge of the clearing. Julius had informed them both of the limits, so Ben was more than safe with his work.

The smell of burning meat was also becoming more clear.

Julius was more than a little hungry after the afternoon's work. He had done his best to distract himself from everything that was going on. But that was becoming harder.

With nothing left to craft, he made his way around to the front of the cabin. Where Jack had built a small fire.

It was a shame that Julius couldn't craft any chairs or furniture of any kind. It would have been useful. The three of them had to make do sitting on the grass in the clearing, chewing on boar meat.

"Thank you for the food, Milord."

Julius could only nod in return. After eating the food he was quick to begin interrogating them.

"Whereabouts do you think we are?"

"Without it being night time I couldn't say milord. I don't recognize the trees or berries that's for sure."

Ben only nodded in agreement with Jack. Most of the other questions were answered in a similar fashion. They didn't know much else other than farming.

"But it will be some good farming here, I can tell that much. Good Land. Just needs a bit of clearing is all."

That was some good news at the least. Long term that would be a viable way to survive and make some money.

For now, he had far more pressing worries. Some of the other lords had seen far more signs of wildlife and monsters. With no clue about how dangerous his situation would be in a week, it was hard to make long-term plans.

The day came to a close soon after. The Farmers with the aid of the new axe were able to collect a lot more wood. Unfortunately, there wasn't suitable stone to mine in his current area.

They did manage to collect enough wood to build a hovel. That was also quite an interesting thing. The building took about an hour to build, seeing it slowly rise off the ground without any aid was quite the sight.

Without light, there wasn't much else that they could do. Julius wasn't going to take any risks this early on.

Tomorrow with more people he hoped that he would be able to get more done. He doubted he would be able to level up his Lord's abode but he was sure that he could come close. Knowing that there were people out there already at the next level was hard to imagine.

According to them, the Lord's Townhouse was far more comfortable. With access to far more blueprints and land.

He dreamt of reaching those heights in this new world. Finding that sleep came easier than he had been expecting. The weight of everything that happened lulled him into a troubled rest.