* * *
Name: Monster Slayers’ Union
Level: 4 (Maximum)
Level-Up Time: 8,000 minutes (4,800,000 MP)
Description: It is a gigantic honor and responsibility to rid the Apocosmos of the monsters terrorizing its citizens. The monster slayers’ union is one of the few hubs that create quests and contracts to hunt and kill especially dangerous monsters. While the quests will eventually become available to everyone who visits the union, the right of first refusal belongs to the guild of Zeus.
* * *
The union was already at its maximum level so there was no need for me to do anything with it. I always told myself that I should put more attention into it, but hadn’t had the chance to get around to it. The union actually seemed to be running quite smoothly by itself. Quests for monsters were steadily being generated, and from what Aphrodite had told me, adventurers had recently started flocking to our town in order to take them on.
I was sure that if I started clearing some of the quests, more powerful ones would appear in their place, thus pulling in even stronger adventurers but this wasn't that important to me at the moment. Attracting adventurers was great for when the city growing, especially since some of the strongest ones might eventually end up becoming citizens here. But making sure nobody would destroy our town completely was the most important thing to me at the moment. Growing it would need to wait until after we had dealt with the issues we currently had on two fronts: my father and my uncle.
* * *
Name: Dragon Ghost Protector
Level: 5
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 10,000,000x Gold Units (10,000,000,000 MP)
Level-Up Time: 16,000 minutes (9,600,000 MP)
Description: The essence of Typhon, the one hundred-headed dragon, has been captured in the guild core and is available for use as long the core exists. By constructing one hundred golden dragon-head sculptures on the periphery of the city and hiding them inside the city walls, the ghost of the king of monsters can be unleashed upon anyone who dares attack the settlement. This defensive measure will cost 100,000,000 MP to activate, lasts for one hour, and can only be used once per week. During this time, each of the heads is able to breathe out its attacks and move around as far as its neck allows.
* * *
This was the one I’d been looking forward to the whole day. The amount of gold units required to level it up was a considerable chunk of what we had available, but I was certain the Dark Energy would never offer something so expensive without it being worth the cost.
And something that needed ten billion MP of materials to max out would most definitely be worth it. Especially since this was a one-of-a-kind construction—it only appeared because the blood of Typhon had been absorbed by our guild core. The way I saw it, not upgrading it when there was a very real possibility of being attacked at any moment was not even an option.
I took a deep breath and spent the ten billion MP to have the gold appear on top of the lowered walls, next to the dragon-head sculptures. The piles of gold bars glinted under the moonlight, a beautiful sight around our town. The additional almost ten million MP required to upgrade them instantly seemed trivial considering the cost of the materials.
Accepting the instantaneous upgrade, I watch as the golden bars merged into the dragon heads, making them significantly thicker, and the grinding of stone sounded from inside the walls and underground. I couldn’t be sure of what had happened but I figured the dragon heads grew significantly inside the walls too, perhaps even more than they did outside of them.
The only way to know for sure would be to actually activate them but even at level five, the cost was considerable. And it would be even greater now that it was at maximum level.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
* * *
Name: Dragon Ghost Protector
Level: 6 (Maximum)
Description: The essence of Typhon, the one hundred-headed dragon, has been captured in the guild core and is available for use as long the core exists. By constructing one hundred golden dragon-head sculptures on the periphery of the city and hiding them inside the city walls, the ghost of the king of monsters can be unleashed upon anyone who dares attack the settlement. This defensive measure will cost 1,000,000,000 MP to activate, lasts for one hour, and can only be used once per week. During this time, each of the heads is able to breathe out its attacks and move around as far as its neck allows.
* * *
I had completely forgotten about the once per week usage limit so even if the cost of activating them was less than the billion it required, I still wouldn’t want to do it without good reason. This would have to be the ultimate trump card in case of a large-scale attack.
It was hard not to feel slightly disappointed at the fact that there was no new benefit to maxing it out, or any indication in the description that it was now stronger. The only thing that had changed was that the cost was now ten times what it used to be. I assumed it meant that the defensive measure would be stronger, but only being able to see the golden dragons grow in size was a bit of a letdown.
Then again, there wasn't anything I could do about it. Even if I had known it wouldn’t be much of an upgrade, I still would have done it. We were getting close to the end game, and everything that could possibly help us needed to be at its maximum.
* * *
Name: Magic Item Manifestation Altar
Level: 5
Magic Items' Grade: E-Grade
Next Item: 3 hours, 02 minutes, 28 seconds
Level-Up Requirement: Settlement Level 6
Level-Up Cost: 20x Stone Units (200 MP)
100,000,000 MP
Construction Time: 800 minutes (480,000 MP)
Description: Very few entities ever reach the status of a world raid boss and their existence can become a menace to the balance of entire realms. Once such threats are eliminated, the Dark Energy acknowledges that balance has been restored and can provide material things that might prove useful to the ones responsible.
* * *
The altar was always a wild card of a construction project. There were days when the generated item was so useless or odd that it didn't even make sense to put it up for sale. Sure, a coin that bounced forever might be a fun thing to play with once, but there was absolutely no practical use to it. And yet, the altar had still created one.
Other times, the item wasn't something that we would actually look out for or craft, but its value and potential became apparent once we saw it. One such example was a belt that cleaned everything that passed through it. At first we thought it would be a pretty useless item, as it only kept the part of the pants it was attached to clean. Then Aphrodite had the idea of putting it around a wooden tube that was open on both ends. That way, we could pass clothes or even other dirty materials through it, and they would come out the other end completely cleaned. This meant no more washing, drying, or even the small spell that Aphrodite always used. It was an instant hit in the town. So much so that we had to permanently install it in one of the squares so that everyone could use it.
And then we had items that were obviously useful and that we definitely wanted to keep such as those with resistance to elements, rings that offered a defensive bonus, or tools that worked much better than their non-magical counterparts. For all the generated magic items however, this probably wasn’t something that we absolutely needed in times of war. Had it not been for our newly upgraded MP regeneration rate, I might have passed on spending a hundred million on it. But since I'd regain the cost of upgrading the altar in less than two hours, it really wouldn’t make that big of a difference. And who knew, perhaps it would generate an item that might help us fight my father.
I upgraded the altar and the windows inside our house briefly flashed with intense light, despite the fact that the altar was locked and hidden inside our manor. I still had the new category of buildings to inspect before I went to look at it, but I checked its new description.
* * *
Name: Magic Item Manifestation Altar
Level: 6 (Maximum)
Magic Items' Grade: D-Grade
Next Item: 2 hours, 28 minutes, 33 seconds
Description: Very few entities ever reach the status of a world raid boss and their existence can become a menace to the balance of entire realms. Once such threats are eliminated, the Dark Energy acknowledges that balance has been restored and can provide material things that might prove useful to the ones responsible.
* * *
Nothing had changed in its description save for the grade of the generated items. I had hoped that it would jump D-grade and go straight to C-grade, but I guessed I should have known better. Even D-grade items would fetch a good price and, despite the fact they were unlikely to be world-altering, they might still provide value to the citizens of our town.
When I first built the altar, I thought that eventually the altar might be able to create A-grade or even S-grade items—perhaps by the time we hit level ten, or something like that. It sucked that level six had turned out to be the maximum though seeing that our buildings had reached the top of their potential did give me some hope about the difficulties ahead of us.