More than his declaration of leadership had, the new name of the settlement made waves through Thudfall. Mike was fairly surprised when most of the population quickly accepted and started using the name. The people who didn't like the new name were a loud minority, though there was nothing he could really do about the name for now.
Over the next several days, Mike had gotten pulled into meeting after meeting, and was dragged all across Thudfall to talk to various project leaders. Turns out, there was a lot more going on behind the scenes than Mike had realized. He had needed to speak with Grant the foreman, Otto, who he really felt was still overworking himself, Dan, who all the miners humorously called “Dan the Miner Man”, and various others.
It had been easily the most boring 3 days he’d had since the system came around. Honestly, Mike would rather go spend another week or two in some monster lair than go on another damn meeting. Alas, his wishes were not granted, and he continued meeting people. The last person on the list to meet with was Aaron, who was requesting a hospital be built.
“Not all injuries can heal themselves.” The healer explained. “If someone gets a limb cut off, or gets a substantial dose of poison, they need a healer. Hell, a lot of people want a healer even for minor injuries, because many are far too impatient to just wait for their natural regeneration to fix whatever the problem is. A hospital would allow us to treat more people, and not have to deny people healing by saying ‘they aren’t hurt enough.’”
Mike knew from experience how annoying it was for regeneration to fix his body. While his health regeneration in his status menu told him he needed not even ten minutes to reach full health, the reality was quite a bit different. Health and injuries were independent of one another. If his health dropped, yet he had no injuries, he could walk around and be just fine, even if he had just one health point remaining.
On the other hand, he could be very injured, but his health points would not reflect it. This was especially noticeable thanks to his high constitution and fortitude, which made injuries less debilitating. They were not entirely independent though, and that is where the problems with health regeneration began to show.
If Mike had a massive gash on his body, his health would be capped slightly lower than his maximum should allow until the injury was healed. If he took on many wounds, his health may be capped at half, not allowing his regeneration to raise his health until it fixed his body first. Mike had noticed that as he got stronger, his body didn't seem to heal faster as he grew in strength.
This was because as Mike grew in power and got stronger, it was harder to heal his improved body. Mana could make up the difference however, which was the entire basis for the healer class.
“Alright, I’ll ask Grant to get to that when he gets the chance. Also, how would you feel about getting a title from the settlement?” Mike asked.
“That would help with healing quite a bit. I heard from Grant that the bonus he gets for holding a title is not a small one.” The healer replied. Mike already knew how helpful the bonus would be, as his menus showed him just how big of a boost it gave. The “head healer” title gives a 10% bonus to mana regen, maximum mana, and mana efficiency while within the settlement's aura.
Mike was a bit sour that he didn't get the bonuses associated from having a settlement title, as he was unable to assign one to himself. He was not embarrassed to admit he had tried granting himself the “primary defender” title again, as the 10% strength and agility boost it gave made him salivate just thinking about it. He supposed he did have the settlement leader title, but it didn't sound as cool as primary defender. Actually, checking the title again, he saw that his leader title had changed its name from Settlement Leader to Thudfall leader.
There was no other change that accompanied it, just the dumb name he had made getting tacked on to an already lame sounding title. Aaron wavered a bit on his feet as the title took effect, boosting his already impressive mana abilities. He stabilized a moment later, leaning on a nearby table.
“Wow, that made a much bigger difference than I thought. Why does the mana seem so weird now?” Mike quickly clapped the man on the back, pulling him to the side. He whispered into his ear so only the healer could hear him.
“So you feel it?” Mike asked.
“Feel what?”
“The mana in the air is aligned with my own. It's not like the mana from before, which aligned with Jonas’ aura. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what effect his mana had. All you need to know is that you are to tell nobody of this.”
“Why not, people are going to figure it out pretty quickly when they get good enough at controlling and sensing mana.” Aaron seemed genuinely confused at the statement, so Mike elaborated.
“I need to have something in my back pocket that I can use as leverage if they try to vote me out of leadership. I know most of the old council disapproves of my position, but I’m sure that the general populace doesn’t think the same as they do.”
“Well, you are right about that. The people love you.” Aaron said, as he gave a nonchalant shrug.
“What, how do you know that?” Mike asked.
“When people are in pain and need a distraction, gossip is one of the easiest ways to do it. You would be absolutely shocked at some of the things I hear from people.”
“What kind of things?”
Aaron gives Mike a knowing smirk. “Sorry, can't say. I would rather my patients trust me and open up to me than think I am going to spill all of their secrets.”
Mike's respect for the man jumped, and he was glad that he had made him Head Healer of Thudfall. Mike and Hobbs left the healers hut, and Mike sent a runner to go instruct Grant of the new building that was needed. They then moved on to the next subject on the list, which came after the dozen meetings Mike had sat through.
“We need a currency of some kind.” Hobbs said. “It needs to be one that can’t be replicated by the general populace, but one that we can make a large sum of for if we need them. It also has to not be too bulky to carry around everywhere.”
Mike thought for a moment about it, muttering a bit about how he really didn't want to have to make a bank. “Could we get a crafter that just pumps out tons of coins?”
“That could work, but like I said we would need some way to prevent counterfeiting.”
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“Why don't we just try and make a few, we can figure out that problem after we have some prototypes.”
“Very well, I will have some metal workers attempt to make some coins.” Hobbes then moved onto the next item on the list.
“We have been coming in contact with a few encampments, and several are struggling to fight off the nightly raids. What do you propose we do about that?”
“Offer them the chance to join us, or we could go send some guards to help them.”
“That would mean permanently relocating a part of our defending force. I think instead we should help them build defenses, like a wall such as ours.”
“Making another wall like ours would be way too time consuming, plus we would get no benefit from doing it, other than a clean conscience.” Mike didn't like the idea of getting nothing in return for helping the other settlements, though he did want to help. If it meant putting his settlement at greater risk, then he would rather avoid it all together.
“We wouldn’t be getting no benefit from it. If we help them for long enough, they may consider becoming a vassal. If they do that, we would have an easier time reaching higher rank in Thudfall.”
Mike rubbed his temples as Hobbes gave more suggestions. “Where is Devin, can’t he manage these things?”
Hobbes shook his head. “Devin is currently micro-managing the production of resources and the logistics of where they can be most effectively used. Until we get someone who can take over that job, he is stuck with it.”
“Then let's get someone to handle that.” Mike said.
“We have already been looking. Nobody has stepped forward for the position yet.”
“Then ask for one of the encampments we help to send someone to do it, that way we could get at least some short term benefit from providing aid.”
“That-” Hobbes spoke, pausing as he thought. “That isn’t a terrible idea. Honestly I should have thought of that myself.”
“Don't beat yourself up over it, just send someone to talk with the leaders of those encampments.”
“Understood.” Hobbes said, before walking off to find someone. The list of immediately important tasks had finally come to an end, and Mike had a moment to himself once more. He walked over to his workshop, wanting to get back to working on his profession. It had been a few days, and he wanted to revel in the feeling of making something.
He made some basic weapons for a while, quickly growing bored of the monotony. He tried making a few coins, seeing if he could somehow make them irreplicable. He made three different types, since he thought that carrying around 100 of the small ones would be quite annoying. One was small, and was a golden brown color, courtesy of a new common ore found in the mines.
The second was a little larger, coming in at the size of a standard quarter. It had a silver sheen to it, and was made from an uncommon metal also from the mines. The last coin was about double the size of the silver colored coin, and had a bright golden shine to it.
Mike had to admit, he had been a bit biased when designing the coins. All the games he had played growing up, along with the occasional dungeons and dragons campaign, had made him partial to the copper silver gold pattern of coinage. It just so happened to be a lucky coincidence that the three materials found within the mines also happened to be the correct colors, and stepped up in rarity with each one.
Mike looked at the copper, silver, and gold colored coins in front of him. They weren't actually made from those materials, but he would be calling them that for simplicity. If he had to call the silver coin “Menitimium” every time, he would drive himself mad. He pondered on the coins, thinking of how he could make them unique in a way that nobody else could. He flipped one around between his fingers, looking at the light reflecting off the coin.
“How do I make you different?” He asked the inanimate object. Talking to things was a sign of insanity, or at least had been before the system. Mike had a hard few days, so he figured he had a pass. He stared at the coin, pushing a bit of mana into it. He moved his mana around, before an idea struck him.
Before the system, he had needed to sign things all the time. His signature was unique, and he was fairly certain nobody wrote theirs the same way he did his. People could forge it of course, but Mike had a different kind of signature nobody could replicate that was readily available to him. He used his mana to form a loop inside the coin, creating an enchantment within.
While it was technically considered an enchantment, it really didn't do anything, as it had no intent and no structure behind the mana within. All that was in the circle he formed was his mana, which was different from any other. His mana had the special property of destroying hostile mana, so Mike figured that could be an ideal way of identifying the coins. Judging by Aarons earlier reaction to the mana all around him, he wouldn’t even need to feed hostile mana into the coin to test it, as it just felt different from neutral mana.
The only downside that Mike saw as a possibility for this method was that the entire settlement was bathed in his unique mana, which may make them harder to verify the legitimacy of, but this fear was quickly dissuaded when he enchanted his first coin. It was the gold coin, and he identified it.
Gold Coin (Rare)
Made from Klentrium and minted by a blacksmith, this coin serves as a high level currency in Thudfall. The mana signature of its creator has been infused into this coin, and is impossible to replicate through conventional means.
Well, that solved how he would be making currency. The only new problem would be introducing it into the barter system they currently had. That was a problem for later though, and Mike got to work making more and more of these coins, adding his mana signature to each. He didn't know how long he had been making them, but he finally had to stop as the pile of them had gotten too large to ignore.
In his workshop sat thousands of copper coins, hundreds of silver coins, and one hundred gold coins. Each was enchanted by him, and he felt a faint connection to each of them. Despite the utterly ridiculous amount of the coins he had made, he hadn't gotten a single level in his profession from the ordeal. He heard a knock on his door soon after, and answered without getting up from his chair.
“Come in!” He shouted. The door to his workshop creaked open, and he saw it was dark out. Hobbes stood at the entrance, holding an honest to god clip board with several dozen sheets of paper on it. “Wow, have I really been in here all day?”
Hobbes gave him a look, before responding. “No, sir. You have been in here for over a day, I sent several scouts out to make your offer to the encampments nearby.” He then looked at the pile of coins nearby, which was shining brightly from all the reflective surfaces. “I see you have been hard at work solving another of our problems.”
Mike stared at the man. Had he really been making these coins for that long? Hobbes continued speaking, dashing any sense of pride he felt at his creations.
“The council has come to the conclusion that we need three different size currencies, though I can already see you came to the same conclusion. We need roughly two thousand of the largest coins, fifty thousand of the middle one, and one million of the smallest coins. Mike looked at the pile he had made. He had been counting how many he had made so far, and he had made almost ten thousand of the copper coins. That had taken him over a day to do though, and he wasn't about to spend 2 years making these things.
“Yeah, screw that. Tell the smiths of the settlement they will be handsomely compensated for making these for us. Tell them they get to keep one copper for every hundred they make.”
“Yes sir, I will take some as references for the smiths to copy.” Mike remembered the signature each of them was going to need, and groaned as he realized he would need to work with the million coins no matter how much of the making he put off for others to do. Hobbes left the workshop, leaving most of the pile of coins sitting there. Mike looked at the many materials that had been placed in his workshop by the miners. Since he was the best crafter in Thudfall, he was given about one percent of all rare materials dug up by the miners, though he knew that wouldn’t last much longer when the new currency was put in place.
“Welp, might as well use it while I have it.” He said, before rolling up his metaphorical sleeves, and once more heating up his forge.