As William stood on a hill overlooking a certain lake near Runick. He couldn’t help but think on the fact of how many beautiful vistas humans or any mortal had seen on the vast assortments of worlds and universes he now knew existed. He also thought on how many of those vistas were then destroyed under the boot of progress. These thoughts were fleeting as the limestone he and the goblins were extracting from the new mine were necessary for the survival of all in Runick. With this new resource he could then make a wall thicker then a wagon but harder then stone. It was unfortunate that the villagers had lost all of their draft animals.
The sturdy hand carts Will had made recently were serving well but they neither had the required capacity he needed. Nor could he ever make them bigger as most of his worker were too weak to pull anything bigger. His manpower problem was solved, for the moment. His logistic and societal woes had only started. He needed capable people to oversee projects he currently had two. Three to oversee what was currently one hundred and eighty seven souls with more on the way. That number was made up of one hundred goblins, and eighty seven various mid sized humanoids more then half that number humans. The goblins were a rough even split of male female the ages of which were young adults and a few children. The humanoids, out of the adults, were predominantly woman only seven adult males were still alive the number of children was the issue over half of his humanoids were children. Kena was the eldest now a young adult by tradition. The rest were still three or twelve years from adulthood. Even Cluci still needed three or four years to receive his class. With the new knowledge that he had an interesting effect on every new class acquired by children. William knew he had now come into contact with every child in Runick through his gambling with the older ones over work and toys or his general love for child curiosity he had an avenue.
To build to new better minions one must invest. Teaching the children for a few hours on basics and offering little windows to the modern world of science I might gain insight on what I can expect for my future workforce. Like that as William towed a cart load of limestone from the mine a new way forward was established.
Over next few weeks and the resources were gathered. William mostly stayed in the village over that time to hard supervise construction. William had seen the two new houses of his village. He didn’t like them. They were crude, used thatch roofs, weren’t efficient, but worst of all they couldn’t be hooked up to any modern utilities. He would have his modern fancies eventually dammit no matter the cost. To do so William had all new constructions stopped immediately. While he couldn’t exactly explain why. Anything he said to console them would only go over their heads.
So he did the next best thing he gave them a picture of the future. Literally. He created an interact able building model using wood. He created a building for each upgrade in utilities as they came to be in the village sewage, running water, electricity, complete air control, internet. Each and every utility hole would be there just not used. Only covered up for the moment they were eventually needed. He then showed the first iteration it was bare bones but it currently had all the luxuries of medieval life mixed with modern knowledge to allow air flow. Using some other techniques he also made the house fire resistant at least for the main structure if the fire was put out eventually. With the model in hand and a few demonstrations in mind William asked for a meeting. William used the meeting to propose the house while making promises. That he would manufacture the material for every single house. That a house would be provided to all as required. He quietly promised himself that when people were able to understand the process he would reveal the real world process. Also during the meeting he asked that everyone minus the children who were mandated, were free to come to his few hour long education classes. No one was against Williams designs how could they a house, when they were either sleeping in a hide tent or the gathering hall, was a gift. So the time went on for the two weeks timber was cut the logs were transformed by Will into packages and instructions for the anyone to build. He let them start digging foundations. However he would still need concrete for them to actually start building.
However during that time as well Will became a teacher to children first adults second. For this he earned a new skill for basically free [ Teacher [Passive] ] weirdly it was a learned skill.
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[ Teacher [Passive] ] Description: The basis of all mortal civilization is based on passing down skills and knowledge. All your students, apprentices, proteges will receive a better chance of retaining any knowledge you teach. Younger students have a better chance of having their skills at higher levels if their classes are in line with what was taught and attaining any learned skills you have. You may also teach your learned skills to others.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
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With this skill William added learning [ Universal Translator [Passive] ] to the docket. He could also now add the ability to read and write to his curriculum. From what Emilia had said about languages in this world they were nothing like that of Earth. The only thing that seemed to stay the same was numbers and mathematical symbols. So he taught the village English in all of its terrible inconsistencies of the written word. Wasn’t like they knew of anything else though. Not a single one of them had left the village. That was doubly so for the goblins. Most traders had a trade of goods not coin. Which was delightful to hear for William.
Most everyone except the children of course had [ Universal Translator [Passive] ] by the end of the next month though a few were lagging. It didn’t matter. At the end of the month William had perfected a modern concrete mixture for the villages purposes. He had cheated a bit by using [ Create ] to make a portland cement as he simply didn’t have access to the needed grinding or heating facilities to make the clinker needed for the cement. It took the entire month but he did it the mixture was perfect now for the mass required for the buildings and the wall. Nothing was easy but in a few months his village would be protected from all comers and sturdy enough to stand up to any burning. However William had this itch everything was coming into place a ‘minor’ setback with the ogres and trolls but that was easy to deal with. To William, he knew what it was but didn’t want to acknowledge a silly soldier and gamer twitch. The fact that because everything was going his way something was on its way to possibly screw him over. He just hoped he was prepared before it decided to show up.
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A fair ways to the south of Runick and Williams machinations, an army of tens of thousands layed siege to a colony settlement of the Kingdom of Arintheld. The massive walls of the settlement stood in defiance of the legions that burned its homes and slaughtered its sons and daughters. The fortress settlement of Arin’s Hold was a feat of engineering of the times its stone walls high and bristling in defenses and magical runes preventing damage. It was a massive thorn in the side of the Imperium who sought to control the northern stretches of the Rift. It had withheld to siege for centuries every single one bolstering the arrogance and the amount of money that could be embezzled from its defenses.
It was this simple fact that the Imperium continued the seemingly hopeless endeavor after generations. Every siege, more cracks would show but never cause the fortress to be taken. However this time, this time the walls would fall where so many others had failed. Instead one woman that had a much better plan. Or at least that was what she had told the senate back in Molgham. Now she wasn’t so confident as she sat looking over a map depicting the defenses of the fortress.
She had employed the best spies to cut the head off the snake but it seemed as if the corrupt pit of Arintheld was a hydra from the reports she had from her spies. She had not expected this. She had snuffed dozens of relatively short lived rebellions in her long [ Immortal ] life. While she was only on the edge of entering the third circle and thus only benefited by not being obliterated. With this victory she hoped to finally have a taste of what the further circles of eternity posed. But this damnable fortress was impregnable! She slammed her fist then buried her face in her arms on the table. But as she was pitying her mistakes a voice from behind her coughed. She wheeled around using a bit of air magic to dry her eyes. It was her Legate her second in command but she had had so many at this point she didn’t bother learning his name.
“Yes, Legate?” “Senator Varia I have news from our quartermasters we have a problem evidently. During our last foray upon the walls it would seem as if spies were posing among those that retreated. They poisoned some of of our supplies the men are still going through everything but estimate to have destroyed at very least six months worth of our supplies. The surrounding area has already been picked clean and further turns into wilderness filled with monsters. I have made sure the news has been kept under wraps, the spies apprehended for interrogation, but came to you on how to proceed.” Varia nearly lost it as the enemy yet again had more tricks for her. She thought a moment then stated “Gather a legion and march back to our colony we wintered at they should be ripe with grain and meat as my taxes only meet the minimum required. Bring as much as they can spare until the harvest and bring it back with the greatest of haste. Standard rules apply burn anything or confiscate as you see fit if you manage to find any more Rifter settlements. We can’t have spies and saboteurs along our logistics route can we?”