Next in line were the ones connected to the divine realm.
* * *
Available Divine Realm Construction Projects:
Divine Portal (1/1) - Divine Realm Construction
God's Watchtower (1/1) - Divine Realm Construction
Hexagonal Prismatic Ambrosia Cell Tower (1/1) - Divine Realm Construction
Wonder of Worship (1/1) - Divine Realm Construction
Divinity-Channeling Core Attachment (0/1) - Divine Realm Construction
* * *
I wasn't expecting any of them to become available in greater numbers so I just went straight to the last one in the list.
* * *
Name: Divinity-Channeling Core Attachment
Resources Needed: 50,000 Followers (Not Consumed)
30 DP among all guild members
Construction Time: 3,600 minutes (2,160,000 MP)
Description: The divine essence of the realm in which the guild core operates becomes an integral part of it. The core attachment can store divinity points and use them for the defense of the core and the guild's town or to mount offensives.
* * *
This looked like a great addition to our defenses, but I couldn't just commit to all of us spending our divinity points to build it right now. I wasn't even sure if we would be able to gather 30 DP if we put all of them in it at once. It had been a while since I asked them their divinity levels, though I knew their follower numbers were growing.
I might not have leveled up lately but that was mostly because my father was still doing his best to make me lose followers. I could only hope he was achieving this by changing their minds instead of killing them off. The only reason my divinity level wasn't dropping was because I was also getting new followers every day, especially since the wonder of worship building had been constructed.
Having decided that this new construction wouldn’t work for us at this point, I went back to the top of the list.
* * *
Name: Divine Portal
Level: 5
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 1,600x Stone Units (16,000 MP)
12 Divinity Points
Level-Up Time: 32,000 minutes (19,200,000 MP)
Description: A two-way portal that can be permanently placed at a distance of up to 15 miles from the guild core. These portals allow for instantaneous teleportation between them with absolutely no limitations on size and numbers, other than the size of the portal itself. Portals of level 5 or higher can make use of a secondary set of portals. This second gateway can be permanently placed at a distance of up to 150 miles from the guild core.
* * *
With the second set of portals and the necessary infrastructure ready to welcome ships, I wondered what changes an upgraded portal might bring. Knowing that the rest of the divine realm construction projects also required divinity points though, I decided it might be best to first check all of them before I made a decision on what to upgrade.
* * *
Name: God's Watchtower
Level: 5
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Resources Needed: 1,600x Stone Units (16,000 MP)
12 Divinity Points
Level-Up Time: 8,000 minutes (4,800,000 MP)
Description: This watchtower was created with the single purpose of guarding the realm of the god who controls it. At the expense of 1 Divinity Point per day, said god will be notified when a creature of significant power enters a range of 10,000 miles. Additionally, the watchtower will nullify a creature’s invisibility once they come within 1,000 feet of the walls, and will notify the god who controls the watchtower.
* * *
The watchtower had saved our asses before but I wasn't really sure what more it might possibly offer us, considering the distance it covered gave us more than enough time to prepare for any attackers. Whatever additional benefits it might offer, I doubted they would be better than extending the range of effect of its surveillance and invisibility-canceling abilities.
I could have been wrong, of course, and these types of mistakes were most welcome when they came at just the cost of MP from our guild core. But I needed a very well-thought-out reason to spend the majority of my divinity points in such unstable times. So I dismissed the watchtower's information and pulled up the next project on the list.
* * *
Name: Hexagonal Prismatic Ambrosia Cell Tower
Level: 5
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 12 Divinity Points
Level-Up Time: 16,000 minutes (9,600,000 MP)
Description: Ambrosia is the food of immortality. Just like bees are capable of creating honey, so can places of power claimed by gods produce ambrosia. A series of interconnected hexagonal cells will be able to produce enough ambrosia for two rations per day.
* * *
By now we had dozens of rations of ambrosia stored and would soon start handing some to select mortals who might need them in times of battle. We were thinking of providing it to certain healers who had the resurrection skill so that they would be automatically resurrected themselves in case they fell in battle, and could continue helping others.
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Of course a healer falling during battle was already a bad sign for their group, but this instant resurrection might be just what they'd need to turn the tide of the fight. Still, this project was quite low in our priorities just now and upgrading the ambrosia cell tower to get more each day didn’t really seem worth the DP at the moment.
Which brought me to the last option on the list.
* * *
Name: Wonder of Worship
Level: 5 (Maximum)
Description: A place to unite all followers under one roof. This temple is the epicenter of any god’s faith, as well as the holiest place to visit for their followers. Pilgrimages can be carried out with this temple as a goal. Each pilgrimage successfully completed provides both the god and the follower with XP proportionate to the distance traveled. Additionally, continuous subconscious praying is unlocked.
* * *
The temple was used quite extensively by followers of all five members of our guild and even though the XP gains weren’t great yet, we all knew it would eventually snowball into getting more and more new followers every day. The fact that it couldn’t go higher than level five made my decision a tiny bit easier.
It would have to be between the watchtower and the divine portal. Since I was completely satisfied with how the watchtower was working at the moment, I decided to start with the portal. I brought its information back in front of me and focused on the words ‘Level-Up'. I accepted the cost and watched as both the portal leading to Dion and the one leading to the open Aegean Sea grew in size.
Wanting to see what else the upgrade had netted us apart from larger gates, I pulled up the information again.
* * *
Name: Divine Portal
Level: 6 (Maximum)
Description: A two-way portal that can be permanently placed at a distance of up to 15 miles from the guild core. These portals allow for instantaneous teleportation between them with absolutely no limitations on size and numbers, other than the size of the portal itself. Portals of level 5 or higher can make use of a secondary set of portals. This second gateway can be permanently placed at a distance of up to 150 miles from the guild core. Portals of level 6 or higher can utilize a third set of portals. The first of the two portals in this last set can be placed at a distance of up to 1 mile from the guild core, while the second can be placed anywhere and moved around whenever desired.
* * *
Now this was an upgrade with a significant strategic advantage. Having a portable portal would mean that I could set one up in Cronus’s palace once I’d infiltrated it so that our armies could cross through it instantly to surround his. I was sure there would be a certain timeframe for the portal to become active once it was placed, but that was a much smaller challenge we would need to work with.
I placed the third portal close to the first one. It was considerably smaller in size, perhaps big enough to fit large humanoids or horses but definitely not for carriages. But that was more than enough for now. People began to gather around it, examining it and trying to discern its functionality.
At the same time, I had a flashing notification urging me to check my inventory. I removed everything else from my view and opened it. A certain item was flashing, urging me to inspect it.
* * *
Item: Mount Olympus Portable Gate
Type: Magic Item
Durability : 420,000/420,000
Grade: A Grade
Weight: 980st.
Description: This gate was created in the divine realm of Mount Olympus by Zeus. A similarly sized gate has been placed in the town of Zeus's guild and is forever connected to this one. The portable gate can be set up anywhere in the Apocosmos, regardless of distance or realm. Traversing from one gate to the other is possible in both directions, and only living creatures may cross through them. Setting up the portable gate takes 60 minutes, and 10 minutes without use is required to close it down safely. In an emergency, it can be shut down instantly, but at the cost of destroying the gate completely.
* * *
We could take this wherever we wanted, but as expected it would need to be there an hour before we would be able to connect it back to the town. The Dark Energy always tended to put some limitation on powerful magic items. It was as if balance wasn’t something that occurred naturally in the Apocosmos, but rather that the Dark Energy had to make sure it was properly maintained.
An hour of set-up time was completely reasonable, after all, if we planned around it. What was more alarming was that deactivating it and putting it back into my inventory would require ten minutes. In the case that a surprise attack didn’t fare well, our troops would be running back for their lives. If I just triggered the deactivation, there was no guarantee that enemies wouldn't cross through it afterward, resetting the timer again each time. In fact, I was pretty sure they would do exactly that. Why wouldn't they, if they could just travel back and forth into the middle of a town filled with civilians and places to loot?
We’d need to set guards on our side of the portals, people that would make sure no enemies came back through when the gate became active. But, worst case scenario, I could collapse it and save our town from annihilation, as much as I didn’t like the idea.
The way the description was worded—“only living creatures may cross through”—made me think that if the portable gate was placed in a chamber that was flooded, the water wouldn’t travel through it all the way to Mount Olympus. Or, even worse, if the portable gate was somewhere filled with poisonous fumes or a disease of some sort, it wouldn’t affect our people back in the town. In fact, the gate would be a good way out of the disaster.
As expected, upgrading the divine portal hadn’t proved to be useful in terms of our defenses but there was definitely a way to use it to our advantage, at least for the final showdown at Mount Orthys since I knew my father would never leave that place.
This was all I could do for now with the second category of construction projects. By this time, most people were heading home, while the night shift of workers were already on their way to relieve their counterparts. It wouldn't be long before my guildmates retreated as well, marking the end of our day—at least, if we wanted to be efficient and safe in our XP-farming session the next day. And that was our number one priority right now. Still, I figured I had a few more minutes before they returned so I pulled up the next short list of buildings.
* * *
Available Enhanced Guild Core Construction Projects:
Monster Slayers’ Union (1/1)
Dragon Ghost Protector (1/1)
Magic Item Manifestation Altar (1/1)
Monster Training Arena (0/1)
* * *
The new building instantly attracted my attention. If it really was what the name indicated, all of my issues with the portable gate would be solved. Having monsters on our side would mean I'd be able to open the gate behind enemy ranks or even inside their camps and set the ten-minute timer for shutting it down as soon as our monsters had crossed through.
I knew that Artemis might not be particularly thrilled at the idea of using monsters in such a way, but if we were fighting against an enemy as strong as a titan, sacrificing the lives of monsters would definitely be better than the lives of our own citizens.
Excited about the prospect, I pulled up the information about its construction.
* * *
Name: Monster Training Arena
Resources Needed: 80,000 Stone Units (800,000 MP)
40,000 Lumber Units (400,000 MP)
20,000 Lumber Units (200,000 MP)
300,000,000 MP
Construction Time: 400 minutes (240,000 MP)
Description: The slaughter of Typhon, the king of monsters, has graced the guild core with the ability to host, breed, and train monsters. Creatures from all over the Apocosmos can be brought here to be tamed, and trained for battle or as beasts of burden.
* * *
The description was pretty vague but the last part was what I was hoping for. Training monsters for battle was exactly what we would need. If their trainers took them through the portable gate and then returned home, we just might be able to leave them to fight while the gate was closing.
I hadn’t thought about the possibility of utilizing monsters in daily life. People had been using animals on farms for thousands of years, and I knew certain civilizations had managed to include monsters in their daily lives. But I hadn’t considered the more domestic implications of being able to train new monsters.
Having massive beasts plowing the fields would be a lot more effective than using oxen. Monsters native to the elemental plane of earth might make mining a lot easier if they were used as guides or even to help drill through the hardest of surfaces. There was no end to what we would be able to do if everyone put some thought into including monsters in their daily tasks.
I placed the Monster Training Arena on the outskirts of the town but still within the perimeter walls. The building looked a lot like any other arena from where I was standing, illuminated by dozens of torches around its multiple arches. Now all we needed to do was find people willing to train and breed. It was going to be a long-term investment but one that I was glad to see starting to take shape.
And with that out of the way, I looked at the rest of the projects that came with the enhanced guild core.