During classes, Rick had let everyone know that his sailboat would be finished in the next day or two. Even though Luke was getting his Gate Gear delivered today he still went to his classes. He told everyone that his girlfriend had the day off and since they had recently moved in she decided to purchase a Gate Gear as well so that they could play together.

Rick explained to Luke that even though he would soon pick up Lily and Ryan that he should take his time and not worry about rushing away from his starting area. He told Luke about his Portal spell again and how he would stop briefly on the Vampire Island. Rick would just need to do a little research online to find where it was located. Now that he permanently unlocked the compass from his quest it should help him out in locating the Island on the open waters.

Back at home after classes, RIck ate a couple grilled tuna sandwiches. After cleaning up he sat down at his computer and answered a few questions about his video and the items for sale in his store that other players were curious about. He also researched past inventions, military formations, past military strategies, and tactics. When he had enough, he shut off his computer and connected to KO. 

When he stood up from the bed and equipped his clothes, RIck noticed the flashing notification icon and opened it.

Spoiler: Show Notices!.

 Skill Mechanics Alteration

This message is to inform you that one of your skills [Portal] has had alterations or the game world has been altered to change how it can be used.

We hope you understand and thank you for playing Kingdoms Online.

They must have made the code changes that block me from entering any buildings that the developers had originally added to the game. It really doesn't change anything it for me I never planned on robbing the city blind. I am not an idiot, doing something like that would be one of the quickest ways to get banned from the game. I am sure they know I used it to enter the noble houses and City Hall and it made them nervous about what I may do next with it.

 New Units Available!

A non-purchasable race has joined your kingdom.

You now have the option to purchase this race [Half-Orc] through the Land Management System.

What!? Now I can spawn in Half-Orcs through my Buy Units Menu? I wonder if this would work if I could somehow get monsters to join my kingdom?

 Rick opened the Buy Unit Menu and sure enough, there was now an option to purchase and spawn in Half-Orcs on the list of races. Closing out his notices as he left the castle, Rick walked over to the Meeting Hall to find Nezera and her people had packed up what little belongings they had and were patiently waiting while discussing what might happen next now that they had decided to live in here.

Nezera saw Rick walk in and she crossed the room to find out what he had planned.

"I am sorry I am so late Nezera I normally return to my world at the end of the day and had a few things I needed to take care of there before I could return." He explained as the two stopped in front of one another.

 Nezera shook her head with a look of astonishment. "It still blows me away every time you tell me that you're from another world. I wonder if someday I won't be continuously surprised over everything you are capable of doing." She said with a small laugh.

"I am sure you will my people are all the same way as you when they first arrive. Then after a few days, I think they become numb or used to seeing me flying and teleporting around them. They may even come to the conclusion that it is normal for Chosen to do these things to save their own sanity." Rick said with a chuckle.

"Your people seem excited and ready for the move." He said as he looked around the room.

"Yes, they are excited and nervous about living here. We have always lived isolated among our own kind with only the occasional visit of our ally orc clans. Now we just recently learned of how many other races there are in the world and we will be living among them from now on. There is also another thing that everyone is worried about as well. When we all woke up this morning each one of us had one of those blue things in front of us that said something about a new language learned and then it faded away." Nezera explained.

The blue thing she is talking about must be a system notice window. If they all learned a new language at the same time it must have to do with them now joining my kingdom. If I were to spawn in Half-Orcs they would know orcish and human just like the Dwarves know Dwarvish and the human language when I spawn them. The system must have updated all of them so that they can communicate with me. Most Players would not know how to speak other races languages so the system must alter any race who joins their kingdom to use that Players race language. Rick speculated. 

Rick instead of using orcish spoke to Nezera in human. "Do you understand what I am saying right Nezera?"

"Of course I...wait you just spoke in a different language! It seems it will still be quite some time before these surprises become normal to me: She said slightly embarrassed after yelling out in astonishment.

"You can't blame me for this one it seems that our Goddess Faith must have bestowed the knowledge of the human language on you and your people so that you can communicate with everyone. Even though there are many races who live in this city they all can communicate by using the human language. I should explain this to your people and alleviate some of their worries. Can you have them place all of their things by the front door while I put away the beds?" Rick asked Nezera.

While everyone was staging their belongings near the door, Rick packed away all of the beds and then took out the huge table and chairs. When the table and chairs were back in place, he had everyone sit down that could because even though the large table had thirty-two chairs around it there were at least double that amount of Half-Orcs that had survived the attack on their settlement. Rick after setting up the table went into the room that he had converted into a temporary bedroom for Nezera and packed away all of the furniture and placed the table and chairs back in their original place as well.

Rick then walked out of the room to stand near the head of the table and spoke to everyone. Rick explained what the window they saw was for and that they could all now speak another language even though they had not even realized it yet. It seemed to be like knowing how to drive a car you never think about how you know how to do it in everyday life and when you start driving it is just a thing you can do without even thinking about it. When he spoke in the human language it was like a seal suddenly unlocked and they all began testing it out for themselves by speaking between one another in the newly learned human language.

When everyone settled back down and became familiarized with their new tongue, Rick explained what was going to happen next. He also told them that while living in the city if they found a job or craft that they might want to learn he would arrange it so that they could work with others who could possibly teach them. He was not positive, but Rick figured that it would be possible for them to learn skills and classes they would just need to be taught how to use their status menus and how to pick the proper classes.

Rick guided Nezera and her people over to the Offical Building and he entered Chancellor Alexandra's office. He informed Alexandra's assistant Irene that they had quite a few people who needed to be housed. Irene gave the four messengers the updated information on all of the unoccupied apartments and sent them off to find the new citizens all their own individual apartment. When they all left to head over to the apartment buildings, Rick walked over to the System Gate and opened his Buy Units Menu.

He chose the [Knight] rank from the Nobles Menu and then went to Government Division Classes and chose the [Chamberlain] class. A well-built young man who introduced himself as Damon spawned in and Rick introduced Nezera and himself. A Chamberlain in the medieval era was the one who had access to the king's wardrobe. The King's wardrobe would consist of his clothing, armor, and treasures. Rick did not have a secret wardrobe vault that he could assign to Damon to watch over and maintain because he had always kept everything in his inventory. He told Damon that his job would be to run the castle. He would become what would be equivalent to a modern head butler who was in charge of the staff and what they were to accomplish on a daily basis.

He once again opened the Buy Unit Menu then chose the [Knight] rank from the Nobles Menu and from the Government Division Classes he chose the [Captain of the Guard] class. Rick then went to the Military Unit Classes and added the [General] Class Once again an even larger muscular looking young man named Talos spawned before them. The Captain of the Guard would normally be in charge of the cities guards, but Rick informed Talos that he would for now be in charge of the castle's private force and later once they had a city guard he would then be in charge of them as well.

Now that he had someone to lead the castle staff and someone to lead the castle military he moved onto purchasing the people who would work under them. Rick bought two male Cooks, two female Confectioners, six female Servants, ten female Maids, twenty-five male Hero Knight_Electro Mages, and Twenty-Five male Hero Ranger with a mix of second classes. 

Rick decided to surprise Nezera and Angelica by making a couple Ladies in waiting for them. He went to the Nobles Menu and chose the [Lady] and in the Laborer Classes Menu, he gave them the [Servant] class. He made two Half-Orcs for Nezera and two humans for Angelica with these options. Nezera was quite shocked when she saw two female Half-Orcs suddenly appear in front of her wearing fine human gowns. Rick then told her that they were her very own servants to help her with her daily tasks and she just shook her head now completely stunned. 

Rick led the new group of people over to the castle. He placed the beds he just picked up from the Meeting Hall in three of the basement rooms for the military units. Then on the third floor, he made men's and women's servant quarters and furnished them with beds, tables, chairs, wardrobes, rugs, and tapestries. Rick then showed Nezera the big bedroom he set up for her and she claimed that she would have been able to fit at least two of her old families royal house inside her new room.

When Angelica came out after hearing all of the people walking around the castle, Rick introduced Angelica's the new ladies in waiting to her. Rick then informed all the staff what was expected of them and showed them all around the castle. He told them that everyone would be able to eat at the castle in the main dining hall or at the restaurant if they wanted a change. He then left them all to get settled in for now so that he could take care of a few things.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Outside the castle, he made a large batch of cement and began building a twenty foot high stone wall with battlements all around the castle plot. On every corner, he made square towers and he also built a small gatehouse with a portcullis out in front of the castle. With the help of Fast Domain and his high masonry skill level, he was able to finish it remarkably fast.

He then packed everything up and went to the plot just south of the castle where his two crews were currently building the Military Academy. Rick built a small marble wall around the academy and the practice grounds to keep any stray ranged weapons from shooting out into the city and to contain the noise the soldiers would make during their practices.

He then moved over to the Academy building and helped to finish up on the construction. Inside the Military, Academy he made men's and women's bathrooms with bathtubs and showers. He used his recipes to make men's and women's weight training rooms and also made one of the rooms into an armory. He filled it with some of the gear he had taken from the tower's 4th-floor armory and used his recipes to stock it with the wooden replica weapons so that his troops could spar with them out on the academy training ground. He filled most of the rooms with small desks and chairs and arranged them all in a classroom layout. 

Rick split up Handil and Jerem's crews again and had them go back to building apartments for the time being. The addition of the Half-Orcs had taken up quite a few available apartments and he wanted to make sure that they always had a good number available for any future population increases. 

Rick called General Sturm over and walked him through the new Academy and showed him the walled in training Field. He explained that one day he would have others here helping to teach the soldiers in the classroom and on the training Field. Rick wanted to bring proven tactics and strategies from the real world into the game for his units to learn and perfect. Even after taking care of any local tribes or clans that threatened the city he knew that his troops needed to also be prepared for any future player attacks. 

Now his troops finally had a place where they could learn, practice and grow stronger. The number of units they had and the size of Tower Island was making it difficult to train them and have them spar together so General Sturm had to recently make do by taking them out on the open plains to drill and spar.

Rick went over to the crafting district next and proceeded to gather any finished store merchandise and he also switched the Cartwrights production back to carriages now that they had a good number of wheeled mantlets ready for use. When he stopped in at the glass workers he picked up a few more glass panes and gave them the measurements for the windows in his throne room. Rick told them to make all the windows stained glass that would go in the throne room and gave them a few ideas on what he wanted the windows to look like.  He left the glass makers to get started and moved on to the next building.

In the cloth making and tailoring building, he made sure to tell the weavers and spinsters to also help the sail makers by providing them any materials they may need. Ever since Rick had his workers over at the workshop on the island he had been collecting all the scraps in his inventory from all of the things they constantly made. Now that they were making triple the amount of clothing compared to when they first started out it seemed like there was a never ending supply of scrap cloth he was continuously storing away at each visit.

He also collected the scraps from the furniture makers and weavers just because he had no real purpose for them he just stored them into his inventory and forgot about them all this time. When he was looking at old inventions online he had finally found a use for them in the near future so he instructed everyone who worked with the cloth to be sure and properly keep all the scraps for him to collect when he made his daily rounds.

Back once again at the castle, Rick found Nezera talking with her new servants and he sat down with her for a few minutes to properly explain the status menu and had her go through all of the attribute descriptions so that she would learn how each one would help her. When he watched Nezera fight during the battle he noticed that she was a melee fighter. Nezera favored the axe and shield because that was just the fighting style of her people. She relied on strength overpower her foes and agility dodge or block incoming attacks. 

When she was familiar with everything they talked about how she should distribute her unused points and decided to put most of them into strength and agility and also devoted a portion of them to her vitality. Rick decided to let her test out the new gains and took Nezera and Angelica fully armored and armed through the Portal to the Orc dungeon entrance. Using the tactics he had before they went from room to room on the first floor suspending the orcs in a gravity field. Rick remained in the hallway on guard and sent the two girls into each room together to clear out all the enemies. He wasn't too concerned about missing out on the experience points and wanted to level the girls up and provide them with an opportunity to acquire more fighting experience.

Rick thought this would be a good way for the two of them to learn how to fight together and also get to know one another better. Whenever the girls cleared out a room, Rick would go in behind them and gather up any dropped items and coins. They soon found the staircase to the 2nd floor and discovered that the treasure chest was no longer where it had been before. Assuming that it must randomly relocate around the dungeon they pressed forward and were soon fighting orc shaman and orc troopers. With Rick on the back line and the two girls fighting out front they made quick work of any small groups of orcs they encountered and with all of them wearing armor enchanted with spell reflection any orc shaman they came across were of no concern to them.

With the small party all working together they found themselves in the open cavern a lot quicker than when Rick had come down alone. The two girls were astonished to see the huge cavern that looked like it were outdoors with the grass trees and bushes everywhere. If not for the illuminated ceiling covered with glowing gems it would be easy to think that they had somehow found their way out of the dungeon.

Rick decided to guide them toward the camp he had discovered last time and made sure to keep an eye out for any wandering orc warlords. If an orc warlord caught them by surprise he was worried that one of the girls would be gravely injured or even killed. As they advanced forward they ran into a few patrols but were lucky enough not to find a warlord among them. 

The three of them eventually found the camp and stealthily approached it. They found that it was much bigger than Rick had thought it was when he had seen it the first time with his Far Sight skill. As they watched the camp from a hidden location, Rick guessed that there must be over one hundred orcs milling around the defended camp. It was difficult to be sure because the entire camp was walled off with wooden palisade walls except for the few entrances that were also guarded. 

With the orcs large numbers inside and not knowing what type was actually in there, Rick decided not to attack it and decided to wait until he brought all of his troops along to try it out. For all, he knew there could be twenty orc warlords in there ready to rip them apart. 

The three of them returned to the castle and found it was a productive trip Nezera had gained four levels and Angelica had reached level twenty. Nezera also got a feel for what the extra points in her attributes did for her and had an idea of how she wanted to spend her new ones. The two girls who were now talking together about the fight and gains they made and discussing how they fought together and explaining their styles.

Rick was glad to see the two of them getting along and he left them to go down into the castle basement. In the empty room in between the palace guard's room and the prison area, Rick took out the weapon stands, armor stands, and tables. He arranged them neatly around the room and then stocked them all with the remainder of the gear that was once on the 4th floor of the tower.

Spoiler: Updated Castle Basement Layout.

 [https://s20.postimg.org/egyq1x8i5/Castle_Basement_update_03.png]

When he was done setting up the new armory, Rick walked over to his workshop and sat down at his corner table with a charcoal pencil and a sheet of parchment to draw up a few designs. Once he had corrected any possible problems and had made a few alterations to the final design he set the design a side and stood up and turned the forge on.

Spoiler: New Design.

 [https://s20.postimg.org/i6nbxu9u5/Steam_Engine_Design.png]

 His new design was for a steam engine that he had been looking into online. This design would be similar to the advanced versions that were used in the real world, but he planned on adding fire and water runes to this design. By adding fire and water runes to the reinforced water storage tank his model would never need a fuel to run it or need a nearby water source to fill it. Rick activated his Fast domain and used his blacksmith, forging and Metal Sculptor skills to build his steam engine piece by piece.

Each part and component he made had been crafted from steel so that when he later used the recipe to make more it would be made from a metal that was strong and easy for him to obtain. After activating a few Fast Domains he was able to finish his first steam engine. He then used his engraving tools to carve out the fire and water runes and connect them to switch runes on the outside of the machine so that they could be turned on and off at any given time while the engine was in use.

Now that he had a steam engine and a recipe to make more he needed a place that he could keep them so he sat down to draw up a building similar to one that had caught his eye online.

Spoiler: New Building Design.

 [https://s20.postimg.org/s0dq24qq5/New_Building_Design.png]

 He stored away his new steam engine and the building design and left the castle to walk south of the Military Academy. on an empty plot that was between the farms and the Academy he built the new building out of marble and used clay tile shingles for the roof. The inside walls were all wood and the floor was marble tiles on both the 1st and 2nd floors.

On the 1st-floor, he built large stone basins large enough to hold a couple hundred gallons of water each from stone blocks and cement and then set the steam engine in place and made a few measurements of the basin and the distance from the basin to the engine and opened a portal to his workshop. He made a steel crankshaft and a sealed hollow steel barrel with three inch wide blades that ran down the length of the barrel like a paddle wheel. he stored it all into his inventory and stepped back through the portal and began to assemble everything.

The steel crankshaft was connected to the steam engine's flywheel and the other end of the crankshaft was connected to the bladed steel barrel that laid horizontal across the stone basin. Rick then chiseled a water rune into the bottom of the stone basin and connected it to a switch rune.

Once he had filled the stone basin and steam engine with water, Rick activated the fire rune on the steam engine. It took a couple minutes for the water to begin to boil in the tank and then the steam engine slowly came to life. When the flywheel started turning the crankshaft it made the steel barrel in the stone basin start to churn up the water. The steel barrel cut through the water similar to a water wheel with the blades pushing into the water like the small paddles.

Opening his inventory, Rick began to take out the cloth scraps he had stored up over time and dump them into the churning water tub. The scrap cloth after being placed in the water was quickly sucked up under the spinning bladed barrel. When the bladed spinning barrel pulled the cloth pieces into its blades, they were sliced and shredded until they became an oatmeal consistency.

While the cloth was getting mashed up in the basin, Rick took out some lumber and made a wooden mold one foot wide by two feet long and a quarter inch deep. When the bits of cloth in the basin were churned around by the bladed steel drum it turned into a liquid pulp over time. Rick then used the wooden molds he made to scoop out the cloth pulp and shift it around in each mold until it was evenly layered. Using the wooden mold recipe he made up one hundred wooden molds and filled them all evenly with cloth pulp and let them too dry in the fast domain.

As the cloth pulp dried he used his recipes to make a work bench and a metal tube roller. When the cloth pulp was dry it turned into a solid sheet that he ran through the metal tube rollers to squeeze out the excess water.

Rick then stacked each sheet in between cuts of fabric to help absorb the remaining moisture. During the papers drying process, he made a paper cutter from a block of wood and a short sword that he drilled a hole through the blade and bolted it to the side of the wood block on a small pivot axel.

When the sheets were completely dried, he had a hundred sheets 2 x 1 sheets of white paper that he cut down into 1 x 1 sheets with the paper cutter. He used the empty molds to scoop out the rest of the cloth pulp and ended up with eight hundred 1 x 1 sheets of paper when he was done and he still even had a fair amount of scrap cloth left to use for another batch later.

Rick shut down the steam engine and stored away all his paper and went back to the castle he stored the paper in a wooden cabinet in his library and then found his Chamberlain he showed him how to operate the runic lights, the stoves, and the bath tub so that he could then show the cooks, servants, and maids how to operate them. He then went up to his room and unequipped his clothes and laid under the covers and disconnected from the game.

Disconnect!