In only around a week, I had managed to grant titles to both of my barons, and the mayor titles to the villages that remained in my control. And, of course, my 3 knights, who gave their squires the squire title.
From now on, I’d be granting the mayor title to the leaders of the new villages before they left the capital, or at least I’d try to but... no promises.
After all, that’s what Barons are for, is it not? They can deal with the small things like granting titles themselves.
Quest Golden Acres completed! Rewards, 20 Exp + 2 Research Point
have been granted in the Empire System!
And a few weeks into the spring, I got a message confirming that I had completed another quest.
Golden Acres was just a quest that was about my empire having enough farmlands to feed 2000 people, not that interesting of a quest, but hey, it’s something.
Then I opened my research tab, and researched uplift.
Emperor Skill Uplift – Gives you the skill necessary to uplift people into party members. There is a max cap to how many Homunculi can be uplifted, and this cap can be increased by increasing your empire level. – Costs 2 Research Points
And as I probed the skill in my system window, I realized that I could only uplift 2 people to be my party members. It wasn’t much, but I would basically be granting immortality to two people of my choosing which was... actually pretty hard to decide on.
I mean, there were candidates, yes, but I couldn’t just go around willy nilly and just uplift people who I saw as “suitable”. And it didn’t matter if they were consenting or not as I didn’t believe most people could understand the implications of immortality.
It’d suck for my empire if I made someone a party member only for them to commit suicide after a century.
So, I was going to just keep this a secret for myself while I judged people for their capabilities, and if they could understand the ramifications of immortality or not.
Though it was going to hard to judge people if they were capable of understanding the ramifications of immortality as... well, everyone was 7-year-old, or younger. They didn’t exactly have that much of a life experience even though they had some knowledge when they were created.
But I guess only time will tell if people capable of the gift of immortality appear or not.
Until then, I’ll just keep completing quests, do researches, and grow my empire level.
And finally start constructing that third wall as, by day 2.738 the masons were finished with crafting the bricks for the wall, and were now tasked with making bricks for roads as I had gained a quest from bypassing the basic road construction which asked me to make a lot of roads.
All Roads Lead To Raetopia – Have a total of 1.000 km of stone roads in your empire. - Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point
...Yeah, that quest was not getting completed in the next a decade or two. But it would be completed eventually which was what was important.
Anyways, a few days later I put CG3 and 4 to start building the wall, which would take them around 2 months to do, and only leave CG2 to build new homes, but that was an acceptable loss of time considering the amount of security a stone wall like that would give the capital.
And in addition to the increased security, we’d also have enough area to build 680-700 more houses in the area. The maximum amount is actually more like 750 or so, but taking into consideration roads and other public infrastructure, 680 seems like a more likely amount of housing that can be built in the outer circle.
Though we will need to build a few bridges as the wall will cover the area beyond the river too, which shouldn’t be that much of a problem though.
And the few farmlands we destroy can always be rebuilt elsewhere, so no problem there either!
And a just a few weeks before winter the stone walls were completed!
We didn’t have enough soldiers to man the walls, but thankfully my army was literally the biggest army that existed in this world, and I really doubted that the barons had figured out how to make cannons in the last few months, so my small army would be a no problem right now.
Though... I should try and get more regulars soon in the army. Afterall, whatever forces we have right now are stretched pretty thin, and we won’t be able to react to any monster attacks quickly.
Not that I am worried about the safety of the capital, but the villages are always at danger from wild beasts, and the militia they have probably won’t save everyone.
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Hmm... but I don’t really want to build more and more barracks randomly, and my military HQ is already built... though its quite close to the second wall, so I could always just add more barracks behind it... yeah, fuck it.
I am ordering CG3 and 4 to build another 6 barracks for the military before they return to building civilian housing.
I won’t be able to summon all 120 soldiers that those barracks can handle at a whim, but over the next 2-3 years I should be able to fill them up.
Though, then I will need to build more barracks, but, hopefully, by then I will have enough construction workers to start building a military outpost outside the capital, which should act like training grounds for the soldiers too!
Quest None Left Roofless completed! Rewards, 10 Exp + 1 Research Point
have been granted in the Empire System!
“...Ahh... I had nearly forgotten that quest even existed, though I didn’t know it counted barracks for the total count of 1000 people.... though, it must not be counting the ones in the villages which kinda sucks, but oh well...” I muttered to myself, and opening my empire system saw that I had 200/350 exp required to increase my empire’s level, and 2 research points to go!
Opening my research tab once again, I... was actually quite surprised by the number of researches I had left to research.
Level 2 Researches
Aquaculture – Fish farming. - Costs 4 Research Points
Fruticulture – Agriculture but for trees and other fruit bearing stuff. So, basically Orchards. Do I need to explain more? - Costs 2 Research Points
Gold and Silver Smithing – An information packet about how to make the shiny. You might want this for making coins. – Costs 1 Research Point
Level 3 Researches
Blessing Altar Of Summoning – Gives you the knowledge on how to construct an Altar Of Summoning, which will summon already dead souls, or ones that are about to die, and turn them into your party members. There is a max cap to the amount of people you can summon which can be increased by increasing your empire level. – Costs 2 Research Points
Blessing Altar Of Classes – Grants you the knowledge of how to construct an Altar Of Classes, which can be used by other Homunculi to grant themselves a class. There are other limitations placed upon other Homunculi, but most of the other limitations are same—like the inability to grant more than one class to themselves, and forgetting the knowledge gained if they do so. – Costs 4 Research Points
Basic Ship Construction – An information packet on how to construct small sea-fearing vessels that can be used to navigate rivers and shallow seas. – Costs 2 Research Points
I only had 6 researches remaining that I could potentially research, but I... kinda didn’t want to research 4 of the 6, and as the experience for my empire came from entirely quests, and those quests often came from my researches, I was kinda worried that I’d actually have research everything before moving forwards to level 4!
I mean, I could only get 90 exp from the quests I currently had, and getting the quests from all the researches, and completing them might not even give me the remaining 60 I needed!
“...Rae, how am I supposed to reach empire level 4? The exp I will get from my quests... they just don’t add up to 350.”
“Oh, remember the secret quests I talked about? You need to complete a few quests from there to advance too!”
“I... don’t think this is how this should work? I shouldn’t have to complete the secret quests to level up, Rae.”
“Well, if you only developed your empire within my expectations, I wouldn’t have to put all those quests in the secret quests section, so, whose here to blame! You, or me?”
“Most definitely you. There is just no doubt about that. Reveal me some of the secret quests you have so I don’t have to spend another decade stuck in level 3.”
“Eh... I mean, if some of these quests take you an actual decade to complete, I may just leave you and start all over again, but... sure.” She muttered unwillingly, and opening my empire system I saw a few new quests and... perhaps I shouldn’t have asked her to give me those secret quests as not worrying about the 2 “Repeatable” quests that appeared just below the divine quests would’ve been better.
Repeatable - Wave Breaker I – Survive against the initial monster waves sent out by the true dungeon. – Rewards: 0-50 Exp + 0-3 Research Points
Repeatable - Wave Breaker II – Survive against the monster tide sent out by the true dungeon. – Rewards: 0-100 Exp + 0-10 Research points
“...Rae, why are these Wave Breaker quests repeatable and why can I get 0 exp and research points from them?”
“Until you manage to somehow neutralize, or destroy the true dungeon core, it will send out monster waves and tides every so often, and how well your empire manages to do against it will decide how many exp and research points I give you.”
“And how often are these waves?”
“Every 2-3 decades. Though one should start in 2-3 years.”
“...Why are you just telling me this late?”
“Eh, don’t worry about it too much. Your empire is quite small, and at most you will fight against some Tier 2’s for the initial waves, and perhaps one or two Tier 3’s for the proper tide as you are quite far away from the true dungeon core, and most of the monsters will kill each other before they even reach you.”
“...That doesn’t really quell my worries. What happens when we continue building further south? Will those settlements definitely get destroyed at each wave?”
“Well... no, not really. Unless you are really stupid that is. You can always take advantage of geography, and concentrate the waves and the tide onto a single place where you just put all of your soldiers and mages, that way you should be able to kill most of them, if not outright break the waves.”
“...I still don’t feel good about these monster waves. Why didn’t you put me on a planet where there were no true dungeons?”
“It would’ve been boring? And, hey, look on the good side of things! In the aftermath of each monster wave the economy will have a short boom! That should help out quite a bit, right?”
“...” Then, I just sighed, and turned to look at the other three quests Rae gave me, and with them, I was just 20 exp shy of being able to level up.
Magically Attuned – Find and groom 10 magically inclined homunculi into Tier 2 – Rewards: 20 Exp + 2 Research Points
Birth Of Bluebloods – Have 10 nobles of Baron rank and higher. – Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point
Monster Hunter – Kill 3 tier 3 monsters. – Rewards: 10 Exp + 1 Research Point
And as I looked at them, I realised that I literally did not have a chance to reach level 4 before completing the monster wave... though the extra research points would be great for later.
Turning my attention away from the quests and the evil goddess that was haunting my realm, I quickly clicked on the altar of summoning and researched it.
As the information about how to build an altar of summoning entered my mind, I quickly wrote down all the things we’d need, and ordered the guard in front of my door to go and quickly get these things ready.
I didn’t have any confidence in any of my current homunculi to be able to aid me in ruling this kingdom through the crisis of the waves that were to come soon, and I sadly had to hope that I’d find someone capable enough in the group of people I’d talk to in the summoning session in a few days.
And also, hope that they were willing to reincarnate to this shit hole of a world too.