* * *

Available Construction Projects:

Tent (1/10)

Storage Shack (0/1)

* * *

I selected the tent and immediately purchased the materials needed. However, before I went ahead with building it, I thought of trying something else. I went back to the same menu and bought the leather and lumber needed for another tent, then repeated the process until I had enough materials for nine tents.

When I went to see what would happen if I wanted to buy the resources again, however, I got a different notification.

* * *

You have purchased the maximum amount of resources needed for building tents.

* * *

This seemed to mean that I couldn’t keep buying resources with mana forever, only enough to build what was currently available to me. As I looked at all the lumber around me though, another question popped into my mind.

To answer this, I needed to find the overview of all my materials and resources. I looked into the settlement options until I found the one I was looking for and clicked it.

* * *

You need a storage facility to start storing resources.

* * *

I guessed that having lumber lying around on the grass didn’t count as having resources stored, so I opened the available building projects again and this time I selected the storage shack.

* * *

Name: Storage Shack

Resources Needed: 40x Lumber Units (400 MP)

2x Iron Units (20 MP)

1x Misc Building Units (10 MP)

Construction Time: 5 minutes (3,000 MP)

Description: A simple, single-story wooden building meant for storing purposes. This building doesn’t provide for the most efficient use of space, but it does offer some protection for anything that is stored inside it.

* * *

The storage building carried a much larger mana price than the tent, especially because of the construction time. On the other hand, I literally had billions of MP available and it made sense to level up the settlement as quickly as I could in order to increase the amount of mana the core provided, but also to unlock mana generators.

I had no idea at what level that was going to happen, but having seen my father’s guildhall, as well as those of his titan siblings, I knew it would be the best investment in the long term. I just had to keep raising the level of the settlement until I unlocked them.

Continuing with my plan, I paid the 430 MP required and all the materials needed to build the shack appeared next to me. The next part would be putting it all together, but I definitely wasn’t going to take care of it. I had no idea how one person alone would ever be able to set it up in the five minutes suggested by the Dark Energy information.

And so I had two options. I would either have to get a mana worker to do it, or just buy out its construction time. First, I looked into the cost of the mana worker and was pleased to see that it was one tenth of the cost of buying out the construction time.

I didn’t really want to wait for the mana worker to build the storage shack, which would take five minutes, but it would definitely make sense to use it with the tents. Thus, I focused my attention on the “Construction Time” option of the building selection screen.

* * *

You can completely skip the construction process of the Storage Shack at the cost of 10 MP per second.

Would you like to do so for a total of 3000 MP?

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Yes No

* * *

I selected “Yes” and the building’s frame appeared immediately in front of me. To my surprise, just thinking of moving it away from me actually made it move. I quickly realized that this was essentially how I would decide on the placement of the building, since it didn’t require any markers or foundations on the ground.

I moved the imaginary frame some feet away from the tent Aphrodite was sleeping in and the altar with the orb. I didn’t want the tents to be in its shadow, and looking at the building’s frame, it was going to be large enough to cast considerable shade.

Once I had moved it to the place I desired, I was met with another notification that asked me to finalize my selection. After accepting, the orb flashed again and a wooden shack with a conical roof and a large opening appeared exactly where I’d placed it. The building was large enough to hold a lot of resources, but that wasn’t why I’d created it.

I picked up a unit of lumber, enough to build one tent, and carried it into the corner of the storage shack. Having done that, I checked the overview of my resources.

* * *

You have no stored materials and resources.

* * *

That was interesting. Not only did the rest of the leather and lumber I’d bought for the tents not count for the stored total, but the stack I had physically placed in the storage building didn’t count either. That must have meant that I couldn’t use the materials I bought for constructing buildings for anything other than that particular purpose.

I inspected the leather just to confirm my assumption about not being able to sell the materials either.

* * *

Item: Leather (Cattle)

Type: Crafting Component

Durability: 20/20

Grade: E Grade

Weight: 20st.

Description: The skin of a cow, ox, calf, or bull. This is a material used in crafting buildings and is bound to the construction of a tent in the Mount Olympus settlement.

* * *

Just as I expected, the piece was completely linked with the tent that it was supposed to build. I would never be able to trade it, sell it, or use it in any other way. Having explored this to my satisfaction, I selected mana workers and assigned them to set up the remaining nine tents.

I went through the same process of placing the tents in the exact spot where I wanted them before the mana worker appeared. Each build lasted exactly five seconds and every time I managed to take a better look at the weird humanoid figures that worked on them.

The mana workers appeared to be beings made of semi-translucent energy in different colors. Their figures differed wildly, in size but also in their genders and races—or at least what I could make out from their glowing outlines.

All of them, regardless of their appearance, were very efficient in the way they handled the materials and set up the tents. Even the one whose piece of lumber I’d placed in the storage shack, only needed five seconds in total, including flying into the building to fetch it.

Having built everything that was available to me, I took a deep breath of the evening air and looked around me. There was nobody in these tents yet, but pretty soon they would be populated just like the one closest to me.

I turned my attention to the tent Aphrodite had retired to when I thought I heard a noise from in there. At first I thought Artemis had returned without me noticing and that they were talking or perhaps otherwise engaged but then I noticed that the huntress was still pretty far away from us, walking under the moonlight.

I listened more closely but I didn’t hear anything else, so I decided to look into it right after the next, more exciting part of managing the settlement. I opened up the guildhall’s overview and smiled at what I saw.

* * *

Place of Power: Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm

Name: Mount Olympus

Level: 1

State: Idle

MP: 327,510,119,610

MP Generation: 1 MP/minute

Timber: 0

Iron: 0

Food Rations: 0

Buildings: -

Level-Up Requirement : 10 Tents (10)

100 Food Rations (0)

100 Lumber Units (0)

100 Iron Units (0)

Level-Up Cost: 10 MP

Level-Up Time: 10 seconds

* * *

I now had all the tents needed to upgrade the guildhall, but what was more important was that I could purchase all the materials we needed. I mentally selected each of them in the order they appeared on the list and accepted the cost of purchasing them.

It looked like food rations, lumber units, and iron units were all equal to 10 MP per piece which meant that I spent another three thousand MP on them total. And, as was the case with the lumber I had purchased for the tents, these resources were also only able to be used for leveling up the guildhall and nothing else.

Now that I had them all at hand, the “Level-Up Requirement” field had changed to “Met” and I could now initiate the upgrade of the hall. I focused on the words “Level up” and a new notification appeared in front of me.

* * *

You have opted to upgrade the Primary Guildhall - Divine Realm: Mount Olympus.

The process will consume all resources and materials mentioned in the requirements, aside from the buildings, along with 10 MP and will last 10 seconds.

Would you like to proceed?

Yes No

* * *

My heart beat slightly faster with excitement as I selected “Yes”. At first nothing happened, but then I noticed a miniature thunderstorm taking place inside the orb. I moved closer and quickly realized that the orb was getting larger and, with it, the marble altar it was standing on.

The white altar grew so much over the next few seconds that it looked more like a pillar when it stopped. The orb on the other hand, though it too had grown considerably, stopped at around the size of my head. It was no longer on top of the pillar but had traveled inside it, roughly at eye level, with only half of it protruding from the marble. The thunderstorm inside it was still raging silently.

* * *

Congratulations, you have upgraded the Guildhall - Divine Realm: Mount Olympus to level 2.

You can now upgrade all upgradable buildings to level 2.

You have unlocked 4 new construction projects.

You have unlocked 1 new divine realm construction project.

* * *

I was filled with pride at seeing the settlement grow, and it was pumping dopamine into my body. Without even checking on the requirement for leveling up the guildhall again, I opened the list of the available buildings.