Mike spent the rest of the day walking around his village trying to learn more about what was going on. He didn't find out much, but he was noticing a lot of people who had taken gemlock now that he knew what to look for. He saw the volatile mana in many people, and in a few cases he even noticed people who had taken several doses. Those people seemed to have little to no control over their mana anymore as it rampaged through their body, though it didn't cause any damage.
The very next day, the time had come for Lucas to unveil his statue. Mike got brief Deja vu as he thought about when Lucas had unveiled the idol of lord Surya in Dune. Mike hoped that something equally as useful would be added to his own village. Given that Mike was the leader of the village, he had one of the best views of the statue as the tarp was dropped.
The statue was 50 feet tall, and towered over most buildings within the village. It depicted a man standing straight and at attention. The man held his sword with the tip touching the ground. Chains were falling away from the man, looking like they had just been broken. Mike knew before he even identified it that it was Heroic rarity. He identified it anyways, wanting to know what benefits it would give his village.
Statue of the Guardian (Heroic)
A statue that represents all who protect Thudfall. This statue gives a miniscule bonus in stats to those who are actively defending Thudfall or its interests within the village walls.
Just then, a notification appeared.
*A suitable central monument for village rank up has been constructed. Would you like to make Statue of the Guardian (Heroic) Thudfall's central monument? [Y/N]*
Mike selected yes, and immediately he felt a shift in both the village aura, the statue, himself, and several of the council members with professions related to Thudfall.
*[Town notification] Thudfall has increased in rank to a town. As a town, night raids decrease in frequency to 100 days on average between raids and have increased in difficulty. The town's aura has further aligned with its leader.*
*[Planet Notification] Humanity has raised its first village!*
*[Town leadership notification] Thudfall has become a town. Vassal slots increased. Title slots increased. Available titles improved. New options can now be found in the town menu.*
*Title upgraded! Leader of Thudfall, becomes Leader of Thudfall (Epic)*
Leader of Thudfall (Epic)
Gain +15% to all stats while within your town or vassals. +10% bonus while outside your territory.
Mike felt the mana in the air shift to become more similar to his own, but more importantly he felt a large amount of it start shifting through the large statue. He identified it again.
Monument of the Guardian (Legendary)
A statue that represents all who protect Thudfall. This statue gives a small bonus in stats to those who are actively defending Thudfall or its interests within the village walls.
The bonus in stats had gone from a miniscule one to a small one, but Mike didn't care about that very much. What he did care about was the fact that the statue, now a monument, had become legendary rarity. It was, at least Mike assumed, the second legendary rarity creation on Earth. He was only more determined to upgrade his hammer after seeing it. That would have to wait for now, as he knew that he needed to go to town hall first. Just like when they had become a village, discussions would be raised about several of the things that changed, and what they would be doing about the changes.
He entered the building, navigating through the controlled chaos and sitting in his seat at the head of the table. The entire meeting lasted about 6 hours, and had been no more fun than the last one had been. They picked a few people to give titles, some projects to prepare for the first town ranked night raid, and discussed the requirements to reach the next rank.
Said requirements were a lot more complicated than any of the previous ranks. They needed a population of 500,000, which was a big task on its own. The next requirement was that they have five vassals, with at least three being villages. They already had one village and two settlements under their banner, and had two more settlements lined up while they had been waiting to rank up to a town. All they needed was to wait for two of those four settlements to reach a population of 10,000. The final two requirements were tricky. They needed to upgrade their town hall to legendary rarity, and have at least 25 heroic ranked buildings.
From what Mike had heard, it took weeks to improve the town hall to heroic rarity, and it had been extremely costly. Not as costly as the outer wall had been, but still expensive. The outer wall was already at heroic rarity thanks to the near constant construction that had been done on it, as well as it just being easier to make something a high rarity when said thing is absolutely massive.
The meeting concluded after it had been decided that every member of Antonio and Roxanne’s hunting group would be receiving titles. Mike had pushed back on the decision, but he had been out voted quite badly on that subject. Almost everyone loved the group due to them regularly slaying powerful beasts and defending the town, and if they had titles it would just be easier for them to protect the town. The group wasn't currently in Thudfall, as they were occupied with the lair Antonio had told Mike about. One of the council members mentioned the location of the lair, and from there the task of going out to give them the titles had been given to Mike.
“Does it really need to be done right away? Why can’t we just wait for them?” He complained.
“Because It would likely benefit them while they are fighting monsters, and I believe they would appreciate it.” Devin said. “Besides, I’m sure you can get some fighting done while you are out. Perhaps you could join them in their hunting.”
Mike grumbled a bit, reluctantly agreeing to do it. After being told the location, he raised another complaint. “That's pretty far away, how will I not get lost.”
“I’m sure you will figure it out. Luckily, the lair is due north. You can buy a compass from the shopping district.”
“Do you have one I could borrow?”
“Oh don’t be cheap. They are like 2 silver.”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
That is how Mike found himself in a nick knack shop, talking to an old man who ran the store. The walls were lined with all kinds of contraptions and trinkets, many of which looked to have no useful purpose.
“I’d like to buy this.” Mike said, placing a compass on the counter.
“Is that it?” The elderly man asked. “I’m sure something else in here had to catch your eye.”
“Nope, just this please.”
“Suit yourself. That will be 1 silver and 85 copper.”
Mike paid the price, leaving the shop and leaping into the air. From there, he headed due north. He flew close to the ground, wanting to both practice mid air maneuvering and ensure he didn't fly right past the lair by mistake. He did hit a few trees, but he was beginning to notice that he had quite a bit more control than he’d had when he first learned to glide. He still couldn't fly purely through flapping the wings, but he was able to make adjustments to his trajectory with them.
After a while, the terrain changed. The land went from a forest to a grassy field, then to sand not long after. He thought he may have entered a desert until he saw the large body of water. He came to a stop at the very edge, looking out towards the horizon. “No way they went out all that way…” He said. Surely he must have passed the lair, right?
He sighed, knowing there was just no way he had flown right through or near it without noticing. He began flying over the ocean, much more wary about his flight than he had been before. Mike could swim, but the thought of being restricted by the water while monsters attacked him from every direction was not one he wanted to entertain.
He flew over a large reef, zipping past colorful fish and plants. He brought his momentum to a halt when he saw glowing coming from deep under the water. Taking a moment to psych himself up, he dove under to investigate. Sure enough, when he reached the glow, he saw a large pocket of air about 25 feet in diameter. Inside the pocket were all 12 members of Antonio's party. He felt the water around him begin pulling him towards the bubble, and he let it take him as he fell into the air pocket.
“Hey Mike! Glad to see you could make it.” Mike looked over, seeing it had been Antonio who had spoken. He wiped some of the water off of himself, getting extremely uncomfortable with all of the moisture in his armor.
“Hey Antonio.” Mike said. “I’m sure you all got the notification about the town rank up. The council decided it was best that all of you get titles for defending the town.”
“Sweet.” One woman said. She was holding a glowing staff, which Mike recognized as one of the heroic ranked weapons he had made and sold after Vladimirs concert. He knew that the weapon had sold for quite a bit, meaning that the woman was definitely well off. “Could I get something to make my wisdom or intelligence higher? Keeping this bubble up is starting to get annoying.
“Sure.” Mike said. He scrolled through his menus for a moment, giving her a title called ‘court wizard’. The title said it gave a ten percent bonus to both of the stats the woman had asked for.
He then gave every other member of the party titles, with Roxanne also becoming a court wizard and Antonio getting a title called ‘arbiter’, which gave him a boost to strength and charisma. He didn't know why the man wanted a boost to charisma, but to each their own he guessed.
“So what are you even fighting down here?” Mike asked, looking around outside the bubble. “It doesn’t look super busy.”
“Mostly fish, and the occasional small shark.” The first court wizard responded. “Though small is relative, as they are the size of bull sharks.”
“Small relative to what?”
“To the lair boss. We spotted it a couple hours ago, and ran the hell away. That thing is way above what we can handle, and was at least the size of a whale. We wanted to level up a bit fighting some of the other enemies to prepare for that monster.”
Mike remembered something just then. “Ok, you seem to like somebody I am probably going to meet again in the future, and I know I am probably going to forget if I don’t ask now. What is your name?”
The woman chuckled a bit. “Sam. Pleasure to meet you.”
Antonio butted in, speaking up for the group as a whole. “Alright you two, more working and less flirting. We need to go and practice a bit more. Mike, please stay out of the fight. I know you could help, but you would tank our level growth. Just give pointers after the fight.”
“Roger.” Mike said, following the group as they began moving. They moved at a clearly well practiced pace, with the air bubble moving with them.
They made it to one part of the reef where the coral seemed to thin out a bit, providing much more area to stand on. The group went on high alert as they suspected it was a spot a fight would take place, and they had been right. Two sharks and half a dozen fish the size of Mike swam through the water towards the group. Mike watched as the group took formation, with Sam sitting on the ground cross legged. Her staff was laid across her lap, and it began glowing even brighter.
Mike saw her eyes shut tight, and the water around them began violently shifting. The air pocket they were in shrunk and split into 12 air pockets, with each of them being around everyone present. Everyone except for Sam, who was now submerged in the water. As the others fought the fish and sharks, Mike used his own mana to support his air pocket, making one less thing that Sam needed to focus on.
The air pockets around everyone else followed their movements as they moved around, dodging and repositioning. Mike marveled at the level of mana control being displayed. He only took his attention away from it when he remembered to identify the sharks.
Serratooth Shark (level 68)
Serratooth Shark (level 66)
They were a decently high level, and displayed about the powerlevel Mike would expect from a monster of that level. They weren’t strong for their level, but they were definitely above average.
Mike began watching the movements of each of the members of the group, trying to take notes of what could be improved. The first thing he noticed was that the group's tank was painfully bad at his job. Mike couldn’t blame his too much, as staring down a shark that was biting at you was easier said than done. Instead of absorbing the damage for his teammates, the tank flanked the sharks, trying to avoid them turning towards him. This did result in several others getting injured as they got bit, since the tank wasn't there to block or take the blow.
The other things he noticed weren’t as detrimental to the group's performance, mostly being things Mike thought could be improved in their ability to handle their weapons. His own skill with wielding a hammer was good in his opinion, but the system still saw it as only worth an uncommon rarity skill. The only reason it had been bumped to rare rarity was because he added mana techniques to his hammer wielding.
The fight finished after about 6 minutes of fighting, and the group had not come out unscathed. Blood floated through the water from open wounds that littered the bodies of the group. After the group's healer mended everyone's bodies, Mike used Arcane Repair to fix everyone's armor.
“So…” Antonio said, breathing heavily from exertion. “Any comments?”
“Well, you are wielding your spear more like a sword.” Mike said. “Try more thrusting and less swinging.” He turned to the tank. “And you. You need to actually protect your party, not get out of the way.” He ignored the tanks protests as he turned to Sam. “And you. How the hell are you able to control mana so well? I mean I have a mana manipulation skill of legendary rarity and even still it wouldn’t be very easy to replicate what you did.”
“Well,” Sam said, her cheeks getting a little red from Mike's words. “I kind of cheated. My mana is water affinity, so it isn't super difficult to manipulate water to my will. This staff certainly makes things easier.” Just then, something seemed to click. “Wait, you have legendary ranked mana manipulation!? What bullshit! I have been diligently practicing my control and I still only have a heroic ranked skill in it. Not even high heroic rarity! You just swing a hammer around and you could still pass for the best mage in the village!”
“What can I say?” Mike shrugged. “I’m just awesome.”